


Entropy

by CrawleyHouse



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:22:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 27,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22950121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrawleyHouse/pseuds/CrawleyHouse
Summary: Sometimes small, insignificant moments carry the most weight.
Relationships: Richard Adar/Laura Roslin, William Adama/Laura Roslin
Comments: 38
Kudos: 47





	1. A Distant Sadness

The room flickered and swirled in the near darkness. Glowing faintly around the edges by the grace of a few guttering candles. Splayed fingers pressed into the soft muscle of her thighs as she opened her eyes to gaze steadily into the wavering flame.

“Dei Kobol una apita uthoukarana.”

The little girl recited the prayer dutifully; the way most children did.

“Ukthea mavatha gamen kerimuta.”

Without and real understanding of what the words meant.

“Obe satharane mua… osavathamanabanta.”

She stumbled over it. That was always the hardest part.

“Api obata yagnya karama.”

She glanced over at the old woman knelt beside her in identical pose. The half-light and soft shadows eased the hard lines of her face. She was hazy. Blurred around the edges. But any hint of warmth that had lingered in her eyes and around her mouth had been leeched into the surrounding dim.

A question burned in her throat hotter than the words of the unfamiliar language but the austere posture of the woman next to her did not invite dissention.

She asked it anyway.

“Why do I have to say it in Gemonese?” she whispered into the darkness; afraid it might speak back.

Striking a match, the woman rose up on her knees to ignite the incense under the dais so that the figure of Hera was shrouded in smoke.

“Old Gemonese is the language of Kobol, Laura.” She explained emphatically, shaking away the flame before it burned her fingers, “The language of the Gods. That is why so many prayers go unanswered… The Lords cannot hear us.”

She tilted her head as she watched the candles sputter and flare with life, even as they consumed themselves. She didn’t know if she believed it. The Gods were supposed to be all powerful. All knowing. Surely the Lords could hear them.

But the incense tickled her nose and muddled her thoughts.

She almost flinched when the woman reached over to tuck away her hair behind her ear. Staring intently with eyes cast in shadow as she ran the red strands between her fingers.

“Laura... my perfect lamb… No salvation is without suffering.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather than work on my research I have given in to the enduring pull of BSG and penned a bunch of small (mostly related) ficlets.


	2. Awaiting Aphrodite

Laura opened her eyes briefly at the faint light easing in through the small window. Not quite sure why she was awake. She surrendered to the heavy pull of her eyelids for a moment only to have a dull ache in her neck force them up again.

She’d slept at an odd angle, the waffle pattern of the blanket no doubt leaving an imprint against her cheek. She made no effort to change it. Instead, she let her tired and bleary gaze focus on the dull black smudge conveniently in her eyeline.

The little statuette sat dusty and unkempt on the laminate bedside table. Shaded under the canopy of bright purple flowers arranged prettily in a glass vase. One that one of the nicer nurses had been kind enough to find.

Laura did not consider herself to be a particularly religious person, maintaining her faith out of habit rather than belief when her grandmother had finally died. But she had prayed, quietly and fervently to every bag of the vicious, red fluid they had hooked into her mother’s veins and doubly so to the LINAC machine when it was obvious that the doloxan wasn’t working. The statue had been buried deep in her coat pocket, her hair caught in the buttons, the day she’d learned that the majesty of modern medicine had been deaf to her all her prayers. The figure of Hera did more to unsettle her than anything else, but it seemed to comfort her mother. So, she had placed it there when it became apparent that her mother wouldn’t be going home again. 

What did doctors know anyway?

Didn’t they know that the Gods were more powerful than them? That Apollo watched over their family? That Asclepius himself would reach down and heal her? That Hera, protector of women, would not let her mother die? And so, she had slammed down the heavy little thing there so Hera could commence her vigil. The only actionable protest she could muster.

But staring at it now, dusty and dull, the little hunk of bronze looked about as divine as she felt.

When she felt cool, familiar fingers plucking feebly at the hand fisted by her head she realised what it was that had woken her. Laura relaxed her grip so her mother could pry the pendant with the serpent wrapped rod from between her fingers.

“Another of your grandmother’s tokens?” Her warm voice tried to laugh but the sound was cut with a harsh wheeze.

Laura had always been a little afraid of her grandmother. The singular intensity she brought to even the lightest of occasions. The fixation on her above her sisters. Her intense dislike of her father; though whether it was her father’s flippant dismissal of her religion or his non-Caprican blood that irritated her more she never knew.

“Asclepius…” Judith whispered hoarsely, running a trembling thumb over the bas relief, “God of healing…” The corners of her eyes crinkled with her attempt to smile at her daughter, her hand edging up tremulously to run her fingers through Laura’s hair, shaking as she tried to replicate the long, lazy strokes that had calmed her as a child, playing wistfully through the dense strands. “I’m surprised you kept it.”

“I didn’t,” she confessed quietly, finally raising her head, “I bought it downstairs.”

“Laura…” Even unable to properly retrieve her hand from where it had fallen into her blankets, the expression of tired exasperation that creased her mother’s brow and narrowed her eyes was so reflexively ingrained that Laura was certain not even bad botox could have prevented her from making it.

The insane urge to laugh at the all too familiar admonishment shriveled in her belly at the thought she might never see it again.

“I just… I just thought…” she tried as heat prickled under her eyelids and threatened to flow over. Knowing that her mother had no need for Asclepius when she awaited Aphrodite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure what the timeline is on the death of Laura's family members... but I feel like her mother died quite a while before her father and sisters.


	3. Dreilide

It had started so softly; tentative almost.

Like the beginnings of a lullaby. Or an invitation to a dream. Until the silence fell so heavy it pressed in her ears and squeezed at her heart.

And then the storm rolled in.

Laura closed her eyes against the onslaught. The hard hammer strikes of the keys. The notes reverberating against the gilded panels of the Opera House until the sounds folded back in on themselves only to birth new ones.

Cyclical. Heaving. Rolling over her like waves. Threatening to pitch her into the void.

“Discordant, isn’t it?” a voice whispered so close to the shell of her ear that she shivered.

She should have flinched, recoiled even, to feel a stranger’s breath on her skin when a moment before she had been so sure she’d been alone. Even in a room full of people.

“No.” she breathed, her head moving in the barest inclination of protest. Eyes closed. Unwilling to relinquish the ebbing sensation that coursed through her limbs, pounding in the air until it was so thick it vibed in her chest. The percussion pulsing in her blood.

“… maybe at first,” she admitted, leaning in closer to the discarnate voice beside her, “when you are fighting to find a rhythm… but if you just-”

“Surrender..?” he murmured and again she felt his breath hot on the skin under her ear, raising the hair on her arms.

“Let it sweep you away,” She opened her eyes to glance at the man through the darkness. The hard piano beat against her ear drums, raising her heartbeat in time, “Wash over you.” He had leant in so close to her that the line of his jaw, the blonde of his hair, was all that she could make out in his proximity. She felt a warm tug low in her belly and uncrossed and recrossed her legs as subtly as she could manage in a gown.

She closed her eyes again.

His voice was young… or at least younger than hers.

But when had that ever stopped her before, she thought, a smirk tugging the corner of her mouth and creasing her cheek.

“I’m Laura.” She whispered, leaning into him again, closer this time.

“Ben.” He offered, and she thought she felt him brush a fingertip over the arch of her ear. A touch so light she might have imagined it.

_Ben_.

She hummed deep in her throat and let the music gather her up again, reveling in the assonance once more.

When the lights eased back to illuminate the walls gold once more, she peered through hooded eyes to better look at her companion. Tongue flicking nervously against her lips.

But the seat beside her was empty. Not even a curled program to indicate anyone had been there at all. She touched at her hair in a would be steadying movement. Chest flushing in what might have been embarrassment if she paused to think about it. But smoothed it down with the lines of her dress as she stood and made to leave with everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually part of a larger drabble that I posted a while ago on ff but slots in quite nicely with the arc of this collection.


	4. What's Wrong With Me?

She does not straighten up when the door of her office creaks open.

She knows those confident footfalls.

Laura leans a little deeper into her desk, knowing he’ll appreciate the view.

She smirks at the touch of hands on her hips and pushes back coyly until she connects with the tailored pants of the President.

“I’ve been thinking of you all day.” He growls against the shell of her ear, tracing the line of it with the tip of his nose before sucking at her pulse. Grazing her skin with his teeth. She tips her head lazily, letting her hair fall away, opening up the creamy expanse of her neck to him. Feeling heat pool in the pit of her belly.

“That’s a shame…” she keeps her tone even but leans into the urgency of his hips, “because I have to prepare for a meeting with the Educational Alliance tomorrow.”

He muttered something unintelligible against her throat, spinning her around to face him and lifting her just enough that she was perched on her desk, stepping between her open knees.

“They’re threatening to strike again.” As he buried his face in the soft depths of her cleavage, his nose against her sternum. Her fingers weaving into the short lengths of his hair.

“Let them.” His warm breath tickled her nipples to peaks immediately.

“Richard, I’m serious!” and she took his face between her hands and forced him to meet her eyes.

“So am I.” and almost bruised her mouth with the force of his kiss. It knocked the breath out of her and she gasped against his mouth, trying to catch herself on the desk only to find Richard had locked her in place. He took advantage of her momentary surprise and thrust his tongue into her mouth but she drew him in eagerly, her fingers moving swiftly to tangle in his hair again.

Richard was not a slow, or even a very considerate lover, but she was aware that her status as mistress did not afford her much of either. In any case, Laura did not really mind and moaned low in her throat when his hands pushed up the hem of her dress and hooked his fingers around her panties, yanking them unceremoniously down her legs. Laura shimmied as best she could to aid him, her own fingers busy at his zipper. Her batted her hands away and pulled her to her feet. Turning her around and bending her over so quickly she was glad for the desk beneath her.

She wriggled under the slow progress of his hands, easing up the hem to expose her to him, his fingertips tracing a meandering path up the line of her legs. Ashamed at the wanton whine he managed to rip from the back of her throat and shuddered when he drove into her without ceremony or warning. His fists bunching in the fabric of her dress in the small of her back.

“Laura…” he husked into the nape of her neck, “so frakking tight.” And sheathed himself to the hilt, crushing her hips into the edge of the desk and she gasped as the pain struck her center.

She arched her back, lifting her hips so only the tops of her thighs were slammed into the hard wood when her shift in position only made him thrust against her harder. One hand gripping her hips so forcefully she knew they would bruise, the other grasping at her hair, forcing her head back.

She held on for dear life as the President of the Colonies ploughed into her like a man on the brink, her own sanity lost somewhere in the haze of wanton lust and the delicious pang that shot from head to toe every time he hit bottom.

“Laura…” it was guttural and raw. She felt herself soak again at the sound, unable to conjure anything more articulate than a keening moan as his pace quickened further still. Erratic.

She arched against him. Harder. Insistent. Until she had him where she needed him.

He was close but it didn’t matter. So was she.

“Laura… say my name.” She laughed despite herself though she lost it immediately in a moan.

“Are you going to come for me, Mr President?” her voice so low she could have charged 100 cubits but he pulled at her hair and grazed his teeth against the back of her neck.

“Say my name.” he growled again but she broke beneath him, her arms shaking with the effort to keep herself upright.

“Richard.” She gasped and he drove home until she saw stars. Trembling as she tried to come down even as he forced her to keep climbing until he released the grip on her hair. Letting her fall forward at last, and buried himself in her wet heat with a force that required both hands and finally spilled himself inside her.

She kept her forehead on the desk where it landed. Her knees were shaking. She wished she’d taken her heels off. She wasn’t sure she could stand.

He planted one, two, three, kisses along her spine before he withdrew.

Laura’s eyes bolted open at the touch of his tongue on her thigh, laving at the mess he’d made. Her knees buckled altogether when she felt the nimble muscle push between her swollen folds and lapped at what he found there.

“Richard,” she begged, “Stop… please.”

“Mm Mmm.” Came his rich reply, muffled in the junction of her thighs, the vibrations sparking stars behind her eyes.

“I’m serious… I’ll pass out.”

She felt rather than heard his low chuckle and her eyes rolled back in her head as he took one last, long draw from her but came back to herself as he rearranged her skirt back over her legs.

“You always look best after a good frak.” He appraised roughly, pulling her back up on unsteady legs to face him again.

He kissed her again, more tenderly than he had before, but still forceful enough to make her taste herself on his tongue. He smoothed her hair around her face and kissed her forehead.

“I’d like to see you after your meeting with the Alliance.”

Laura nodded obediently.

“I serve at the pleasure of the office of the President.” She purred, still a little breathless, and smiling with a dark glint in her green eyes that faded the moment he closed the door behind him.

She bent to snatch up her panties from where he’d thrown them on the floor.

“Madam Secretary?” a small voice asked from the door frame and she crumpled them quickly in her hand.

“Yes?” she asked, probably a little shorter than she had intended, his brown doe eyes casting down to the carpet nervously before flicking back up again.

“Is there anything I can get you? Before I go home?” he asked, timidly.

“Ah… yes actually.” And she thumbed through the files on her desk with her free hand, “Can you make copies of all official correspondence from the City Walk District from the past 5 years? Please.” She added.

“Yes Ma’am.” And he nodded dutifully, his fringe flopping on his forehead.

“Thank you, Billy.” And she smiled warmly, hoping it made her up for her snap.

She sagged into her seat as the door clicked shut again, stuffing her underwear into the desk drawer and buried her face in her hands against the possibility that Richard Adar might actually be in love with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've not really ever written even vaguely explicit sex before so apologies if it sucks.


	5. Utterances

He should not be here. 

In fact, this was quite possibly the last place he should be. 

Even if his brothers and sisters were not so disparaging of his model’s fascination with the utterances of the Hybrid’s. The attacks were underway. There were more important things to do. But even so, the Two sat as close to the Old One as he could, crossed legged on the floor like a child. Hoping for some small assurance. 

The truths the hybrid’s spoke were varied and strange. Spoke of things that were and things that were to be. Things that may not be at all. They swam in the stream to touch the face of God and echoed back his voice. But God’s word was not easily deciphered. It required an openness of heart. A willingness of spirit. 

To accept his divinity was to experience his presence. Was to be God. Only then could you hear the Truth and be given yours in turn. The others didn't understand that.

“Engage. Engage. Fields that burn like the light of fire. Ashes. Only to rise again.”

He sat up a little straighter, almost expectant, only to fall back in disappointment.

“Disconnecting weapons line. Reconfiguring. The prodigal son returns for the mother to weep. Borne of all her sorrows. Weapons restored. Online. Forged in the fires of industry. Conflict. Reduce atmospheric pressure by five percent. Stabilised.”

It was an eerily calm way to experience the destruction of humanity. 

His brother had already gone to be amongst them. He had heard his Truth and chased it as single-mindedly as a dog chasing a car. Without any plan with what to do when he finally caught up with it. Not that he could condemn his brother’s actions. 

“The Six has seen the stream of stars. She’ll be coming home soon. Mists of dreams dribble on the nascent echo and love no more. What never was never is again.”

He had done the same many years ago when the Hybrid had revealed his Truth to him. He had sought it out. He couldn’t help himself. Draw like a moth to flame, led by the hand of God himself. 

Though he tried, a piece of him ached to think of what they had done. If this was God’s plan… then his Truth had been a lie.

He just needed to hear it again.

The Two caught himself on his hands as the entire ship pitched him forward. Klaxons blaring red against the polished surfaces of the room. 

“Contact. Contact. The children devour the city. Devour each other. Fish. Chasing tails down steam in the hope to find an ocean. Valiance for valiance sake. Checking systems. The symphony plays for no man. Dew upon the sycamore branch. Engine failure. Controlling axis spin. Relieving pressure fuse.”

He did his best to right himself, even as the floor continued to heave under his hands. He glanced down at the Hybrid. Serene even in destruction.

“All nightmares start as dreams. Rise and rise again. A lion or a lamb? Crowned in the colour of the martyr.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always seemed to me that there were a few distinct Leoben's; the one on Ragnar, the one obsessed with Kara... and this one.


	6. First Impressions

Something about her threw him off balance immediately. He was not sure if it was the settled assurance of her position that she had perhaps not reconciled with before. Though he doubted that confidence had been the issue, she had seemed sure enough of her damned self when she had boldfaced asked if he had planned on enacting a coup.

He could not quite put his finger on why President Roslin, while certainly similar in appearance and attitude, was not the same woman as the Secretary of Education. 

“Maybe she’s a cylon.” The pragmatist asserted, but the rationalist shot the thought down soon after. 

“Definitely Caprican.” A bitter voice grumbled in the back of his brain, taking in the fine cut of her suit, the quality of her blouse, and especially the gold that glimmered at her throat and shone from her ears. 

Her hands, so animated when she spoke but clasped tightly when she spoke to him, were still long, thin and well-manicured. But her hair was not tamed quite so closely to her head, and its colour; several shades too dark for her skin, had given way to something much more vibrant.

Perhaps President Roslin had always been there; dormant, penned in by the tight, disciplined posture of Secretary Roslin. She eyed him with a vigour he thought might have been absent before. Almost painfully present.

He found it only a little odd that the distraction that had so devastatingly infiltrated and infected his crew in the wake of the attacks had only sharpened her focus.  
“Maybe she has nothing to distract her.” The voice came again, and Bill searched her hands again. 

Saul had dug up a cursory dossier in what Bill could only assume had been anger and a little spite at the woman taking away their ship. 

She’d been a teacher. He remembered that much.

“But taught what?” a slightly more disparaging voice asked, “Kindergarten?” 

Bill didn’t think so, or if she had, it had been a very long time ago. She was clearly intelligent, with more than a standard amount of cunning if her swift rise through politics was anything to go by, and enough charisma to sway his son with only a few words and a smile that bordered on flirtatious.

He just couldn’t see it. 

She was a wall. An irritating blockade in a skirt and expensive shoes. 

“At least she isn’t shrill.” the voice conceded.

That was true. 

In fact, she barely had yet to raise her voice higher than her eyebrows. Always measured. Always calm... If a little slow. As if she were always trying to explain something difficult. It had quickly surpassed annoying into becoming infuriating. Setting his teeth on edge in his attempt to remain cordial and had ground down what Bill estimated was at least a quarter inch from Saul’s molars in the last hour alone. 

But when she turned to face him and asked a question he didn’t quite pick up in that deep, smooth voice; he conceded that (gun to his head) it was not unpleasant.


	7. Winter on the Weekend

Laura did not sleep very well.

She could try to blame her newfound fatigue on the disorientating jumps that Commander Adama ordered at seemingly random intervals. Maybe even the hovering presence of her vigilant, if slightly eager, aide. Perhaps the deplorable support of the Heavy Liner’s First-Class lounge’s that became painfully evident after more than a few hours. Or, even more likely, the persistent existential dread that came from being responsible for the remnants of a devastated civilization. All the while trying to ignore and deal with, in equal parts, the fact that she was dying rather quickly from terminal cancer.

But, after having never experienced a faster-than-light jump ever before in her life until only weeks ago, the experience had quickly become mundane in its regularity. Especially when in the proximity of that dear boy whose constant presence was quickly becoming comfortable. If she could stand for a moment to be honest with herself, Laura might even admit that the lounges were at least as comfortable as the dodgy mattress she had spent most of her college education sleeping on. And confess that the prospect of governing and safeguarding what was just short of fifty thousand people was much less intimidating than considering that fifty thousand people was all that was left. Until all that remained was to accept that she had never slept well, and the end of the world had done little to remedy that fact.

So it struck her as incredibly strange that she was having such trouble focusing on Gaius Baltar’s increasingly desperately pitched pleading in her ear and gladly accepted the glass of water that Billy wordlessly proffered.

He sounded so far away. Each labored breath stretching further and further until it seemed to be coming down a long tunnel… garbled in the static.

_The bitter, herby smell of the chamalla seemed to come stronger for a moment, mingled inextricably with the heady smoke of sweetgrass and incense._

_She took a curious step towards the yellow light, pouring out from the gap in the open door, and was struck by the absence of the clicking strikes of her high heels on the cheap, laminate floor._

_The grimy light reflected hard and bright off of the slippery blue vinyl mats and the scrubbed, red brick walls. It was the wrong smell._

_It shouldn’t smell of incense._

_She felt something cold drop into her chest. The hairs on the back of her neck raising._

_It should smell like sweat and leather. A coppery tang of blood that never went away. No matter how much antiseptic you poured on the floors._

_Incense was for dark rooms and frightful women._

“Laura”

_The door slammed with a metallic sting that made her jump._

_Incense invited shadows._

"Laura.”

_Heart pounding, she made for the opposite end of the room. Hurrying towards the flickering green ‘EXIT’ sign with the corner smashed away. Sliding on the slick floor. If she could just get through the door. Escape the pungent smoke that weighed down her lungs._

_The door swung open as she reached for it._

_The corridor rolled out before her. Exposed in bright light. All its corners laid bare. A familiar figure silhouetted just a few steps away. Just as she remembered._

“Laura.”

_She yanked the door shut behind her. Looking frantically for something to jam in the handle. Anything. But the lockers were empty. Not even a belt to bar their way._

_“Help me!” she implored desperately to the figure, “Please.”_

_But the figure turned away. His broad shoulders sagging as he stepped away._

_"Help me! Please!”_

_The shadows were gaining._

_“Daddy!” she pleaded, running after the retreating silhouette. Abandoning her attempt to bar the door._

_It was useless._

_"Daddy! Why won’t you protect me?”_

_Slipping further away the faster she moved. Her breath ripped ragged from her lungs as she pounded down the corridor. She never thought it had been this long._

_“Someone is trying to hurt me!”_

“Laura.”

_She had never been a runner. Her legs ached as she pushed herself faster. If she could just reach him…_

_“Daddy!”_

_But hands grasped her shoulders._

_“There’s nothing I can do.”_

“Madam President!”

If she had any capacity to, she would have screamed.

“Madam President.”

But the hands holding her still in her pillows were the furthest thing from threatening she could imagine.

_Billy._

“Doc Cottle is coming.” He explained earnestly, relaxing his grip when he was confident that she wasn’t going to move.

What had happened?

“It’s okay… Doc Cottle is coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and some of the dialogue comes from a really eerie and melancholy song by Julia Stone. Highly recommend.


	8. Sense memory.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes memories get muddled.

Commander Adama was not a man who sought out sweet things. Of all his vices, sugar had never been among them. But standing in the CIC under the DRADIS array, trying desperately to focus on the print-out Lt Gaeta had just put in his hand, he found himself craving dessert. 

A strange smell had pervaded his ship of late. Wafting in and out when you least expected it. As if it lingered in corners and other hidden places. It was not unpleasant, but it was thoroughly out of place. Gently laying over the harsh smell of antiseptic and softening the hard tang of steel. 

It was something that reminded him of Summer… or maybe Spring, and definitely had no business in being aboard a warship. 

It was something light. As if I would be carried in the eddy of a warm breeze, fresh and sweet and kissed by sunshine.

Bill shut his eyes against the stark white of the paper in his hands. 

If he could just know what it was. 

It made him think of red. And white… and maybe green.   
Did green have a smell?   
A taste?   
Did red? 

But every time he thought he came close to pinning it down, to cornering it in the causeway, it slipped away. Bothering him again when he opened a book or sat down to talk with the President.

And so he stood there, chasing a scent that may as well have been a memory, with an appetite for something he could never taste again; even if he could remember what it was.


	9. Old Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura contemplates Elosha's revelations.

She’d almost grown accustomed to the dreams.

There were a million reasons why she had dreamed of the Leoben model. A million more to rationalise what he had said to her.

Admittedly, the airlock tripped her up.

She couldn’t quite explain that particular oddity away and so decided that she didn’t need to. Dreams were just dreams after all.

The lucid hallucinations were quite another trip.

They had been vaguely amusing at first; odd conflagrations of colours swirling around her staffers and Galactica personnel.

Soft, powder blue for Billy and Wally; muted in burnt umber.

Captain Apollo always looked so serene in the swirling haze of warm greens that followed him and Lieutenant Thrace had almost dazzled her when she entered the room behind him; burning blazing white.

But colours were easy enough to ignore. You couldn’t touch colours. They weren’t real.

She had fervently told herself the same as she delicately extricated her hands from the heaving mass of at least a dozen snakes.

But they had certainly felt real. The cool, writhing, rustle as they twisted over her fingers and obscured her notes. They looked so shiny under the bright lights but they felt so dry. She had felt the thud of the heavy bodies strike the podium as she gently shrugged them off. One by one.

And she was certain that, if she had not frozen at its warning hiss, they would have struck.

She felt foolishly self-conscious as she lowered herself down onto her knees. Silently chiding herself for being embarrassed over an action no one could see and perhaps for even doing it in the first place.

_“But you’re not dying, are you?”_

She eased her hands out over her legs. Before bringing them back together in her lap.

It had been a long time since she had prayed.

“Lords of Kobol…” she started quietly. Whispering into the artificial twilight. Afraid her voice might carry beyond the veil.

It felt selfish, even prideful, to hope that she might be special. That there might be some greater design in such a terrible waste. That her death might mean something when so many had already died for nothing.

“Lords of Kobol…”

_So many prayers go unanswered, Laura. The Lords cannot hear us._

“Help me.” A shudder ran the entire length of her spine as if she’d been caught in a cold wind. And she leapt to her feet, stumbling against the table as her knee locked in painful protest.

This is ridiculous, she thought, massaging her knee angrily and limping slightly to the bathroom.

She didn’t want to die.

She had sobbed it to herself in that very mirror. Pleaded quietly into the damp washcloth with Gods that she no longer believed in. Just as earnestly as she had pleaded for them to take her, that day in the fountain.

She hadn’t realised how much she wanted to live until it was no longer an option.

_No salvation is without suffering._

An offering.

That was what her grandmother had always told her. If you really wanted the Gods to listen, you had to make an offering.

Laura ducked her head, knuckles white on the vanity as she fought to remember the words.

“Dei Kobol una... una apita uthoukarana.”

She just hoped that her life would be enough.


	10. Colonial Day

He hadn’t exactly sought her out though she was impossible to miss. Even in the crowd, that formidable red mane was unmistakable.

The president leaned gently into her table. Her hips swaying slightly along with the music as she observed the party in full swing. He watched as her slender fingers tapped the jaunty rhythm against her glass only to stop abruptly, as if she’d just caught herself doing it, and she laid her hand flat against the tabletop. Shifting her weight to the opposite foot to stand at attention once more.

She looked strangely lonely even amongst the crush of people.

Her security detail were easily the two closest people, maintaining a respectful, regulation distance of 3ft, but no one made any attempt to breach their perimeter. The height of her station separating her from the populous as effectively as any wall would have. He wondered if anyone had spoken to her all night, even just to say ‘hello’.

He doubted it. And, suddenly, Bill found himself feeling incredibly sorry for a woman that he did not even really like.

“Madam President, good evening.” 

The look she gives him is one of mild surprise and something close to a smile teases her mouth.

“I thought you hated these things.”

“It’s Colonial Day, where else would I be? I’m a patriot.”

She studies him closely for a moment, eyes squinting just slightly without her glasses.

“You really are, aren’t you?”

Her sincerity confuses him momentarily and he’s struck by an impulse to reach across the table and take her hand but follows her gaze instead.

Landing on Gaius Baltar; their new Vice-President.

“Dr Baltar… interesting choice.”

“I figured, ‘the Devil you know’.” She explained, a little wearily but with a measure of cold acceptance.

He had to admire her tenacity.

“Politics,” he pondered aloud, “As exciting as war. Definitely as dangerous.”

“Though in war,” she countered quickly, almost lively, as if she was genuinely enjoying their friendly tête-à-tête, “You only die once… In politics it can happen over and over.”

“You’re still standing.”

“So are you.” She smiled, gently swaying with the music even as they talked, unable to stop herself.

“And I can dance.” It wasn’t entirely an accident, but it surprised him to hear the words come out of his mouth, nonetheless. It was worth it the moment she smiled. The small grin happily brightening her face, a laugh threatening to burst from behind her lips when she realised he was serious.

She accepted his lead with far less complaint on the dance floor. Her small hand slid into his with a practiced kind of ease, the other coming up to rest on his dress greys as he took her waist. It shouldn’t have startled him at how soft and warm it was. He’d shaken her hand before.

She moved with as much grace as he had expected of a woman with her bearing but she kept surprisingly close to him as they swayed through the jazzy standard. Her head fell back with a short burst of laughter as he spun her in a circle under his arm, keeping a gentle hold on her fingers as she twirled back into his embrace. He’d never heard the sound before, unexpectedly joyful in its melody, and a pang shot through his gut as if it were a sound that he had missed.

She held on a little more securely to his shoulder as they picked up their steps again. A small smile played at her mouth and shaded her eyes as if with the shadow of a memory but ducked her head slightly when she caught his gaze. And when she shifted her hair back over her shoulder he breathed deep a warm and familiar scent; of sun-kissed strawberries and fresh cream.

For the first time, Bill wondered what it would be like to know Laura Roslin.


	11. Trust

It was a curious thing; trust. So fickle in its abundance and frequency. Flitting from person to person. Never the same twice. 

Laura was not used to people not trusting her. She liked to think that it was the gentle and subdued kind of confidence she had so quietly fostered for over 20 years in her classroom but the realist in her suspected that that had little to do with it. Much more likely it was her small stature, petite frame, and unassuming nature. To most people, she simply didn’t present a credible threat, and trusting her would not cost them much. 

Ironically, it was what had made her so good at her job. It was easy to take advantage of people who assumed so little of you. Favours were easily asked and so seldomly repaid. She took what she wanted with a gracious smile and a little more while they paid more attention to the length of her hem than the particular wording in her papers. If she hadn’t been such a staunch idealist, she could have devastated Adar’s administration as easily his reputation.  
But Richard had trusted her. First to do her job and then, later, to not tell his wife… At least enough that she would not willingly sacrifice her own character on the altar of their affair. In the end it had been she who was blindsided. A mistake she wasn’t eager to repeat any time soon. 

It was, evidently, not something that came easily to Bill Adama, although wasn’t exactly forthcoming from her either. She struggled every day to nod pleasantly along with his strong-armed policies from everything from rationing to policing. To swallow down her immediate reaction to rebut those decisions which so obviously served the military’s needs over the civilian ones and to believe him when he said it was in the best interest of the fleet.

To his credit, he had yet to give her any real reason to doubt him. Had even conceded to her, eventually, over the delicate matter of Lieutenant Thrace. She didn’t know if she’d call it trust just yet, but it was close.

And she was about to piss it all away.

“Commander Adama has no idea where Earth is. He never did.” She kept her tone measured and even, and the facts fast and straight, “He made it up in order to give people hope.” 

There was no point in linger over a blow once struck.

“You’re lying.” She bit back with the frightened sting of child confronted with the idea that their father was not, in fact, ten feet tall.

Laura caught the sharp exhale in her nose before it could become a sigh. She levelled her gaze as best she could, fighting not to wince against the glaring light that pulsed around the young pilot, sharpening the stabbing pain behind her retinas.

“Go ask him.” 

That would cost her later. She could feel it already. 

“I will.”

It would be worse because it was Kara, but maybe it needed to be that way.


	12. Apostasy

Bill Adama tried very hard not to slam the handset back into its cradle. Instead, he rubbed furiously at his forehead in a vain attempt to dispel the tension that had been steadily gathering there since they had lost contact with Raptor One.

_“He put his weapon right to my head. Said to tell you he was ‘following his instincts’ whatever the hell that means.”_

Gods-frakking-dammit! What the hell was it in the air around that woman that made his officers lose their godsdamned minds?

“Bring him here.”

_“What about Roslin?”_

Roslin… Not Laura. Somehow, his brain just couldn’t conflate the memory of that small woman with such soft hands and such a sunny laugh with the stony politician who had just dared him to storm her ship. Who had the audacity to play host to every idiot with a microphone while she admitted her sabotage of a highly sensitive military operation.

“We put her in the brig.”

He wasn’t about to pretend that Starbuck’s desertion didn’t sting. Surely their relationship, their service, their history, was worth more than a few honeyed words from the lips of the President. He didn’t know what hurt worse, the fact that Roslin had broken her promise and turned Starbuck against him with brutal efficiency, or that she hadn’t had to lie to do it.

Roslin was dangerous. As long as she had an audience and a tongue in her head she was as lethal as any of his marines. At least in the brig he could dictate the size and disposition of her company.

Lee was just salt in the wound. He had known they were close… just not close enough to draw a weapon on his superior officer. He should have known better than to attach his high-minded, overthinker of a son to a strike force intended to enact a coup d’etat against his Commander in Chief. Perhaps if he had paused a moment to consider the statistical outcomes of that particular assignment, he could have avoided this particular thorn in his side.

Maybe he was still just dazed by the brief glimpse he had stolen behind the veil of the President; when he had realised that she too was just bones and skin. Or was that all just a ploy too? Vaguely, beneath the anger that surged white-hot in his gut, he acknowledged the terrible probability that he had awfully misjudged Laura Roslin. And the idea cut him down to the bone.

She stood as straight as any soldier when he finally stepped over the hatch into the brig. The air in his lungs growing leaden at the sight of her. Rage burning so hot it felt icy in his veins, numbing his fingertips and constricting his throat. He is glad she doesn’t say anything, or even attempts to, and barely manages,

“Open cell.”

She moves without prompting. At a pace that is purposeful but leisurely, as if forcing him to watch her commit to the decision he has made for her. She crosses the threshold as easily as if he had invited her there and, just to spite him, folds her hands before her and flicks her hair gently back in place over her shoulder.

“Close cell.”

For a moment she studies him through the bars as intently as she had in the darkened ballroom on Cloud Nine; her head cocked slightly to the side. Perfectly impassive.

No. She wasn’t the smiling flower he had danced with. She was the serpent under it.

He just wished she didn’t still smell of strawberries and cream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the best thing I've ever written. Bill was especially hard to reach for this chapter and I'm not quite sure I've done the depth of his feelings of betrayal justice if I'm being honest but it seemed unfair to have Laura's side of the Starbuck struggle and not Bill's. 
> 
> On another note; I tend to cherry pick a little and my focus tends to stray more heavily towards later seasons. So if you have a moment from the series or a particular idea you would like me to pen down please comment or shoot me a PM. I've pre-written quite a bit but I'm sure there is plenty of content I've missed!


	13. Withdrawal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura's having a bad time in the brig.

She’d forgotten how to be still.

How amazing it was that once she finally had the time to just sit for more than half a moment and take a breath it had become wholly impossible.

Her first thirty minutes back behind bars had been depressingly unpleasant. The last of her adrenaline finally waning away to reveal the full extent of the exhaustion and tension that had grown rigid in her limbs. Finally appreciating the dreadful physical and mental burden that was her presidency and the grim realisation that she actually missed it.

Now, at least several hours into her incarceration, she was forced to admit to herself that the thin sheen of sweat that stuck her blouse to her skin had as little to do with the stress of her momentary escape as her heart palpitations, and everything to do with the fact she’d forgotten to take her medication that morning. Or was it yesterday already?

Laura fingered the bullet holes in her blazer absently in between laps of her cell.

_I should be dead._ She thought, catching a stray thread on a spur on the edge of her fingernail, _by all rights I should be dead…_ and felt her heart sink all the way to her stomach when a stray thought wandered through the back of her mind.

That she wished she had.

_It would have been cleaner._

So, when the overexerted muscle of her calf finally seized into a hard, tense knot that sent her to her knees, the sharp cry that tore from the back of her throat as they cracked against the decking proved a blessed distraction.

“Madam President?” the dual exclamation bounced harshly in the small space and needled at the growing pain behind her eyes.

“I’m fine.” Laura hissed from behind gritted teeth, fingers digging into her leg reflexively, not needing to look up to know Billy had rushed to the bars and Corporal Venner had stood up from his chair. She paid neither any mind, however, tearing off her high heel and gingerly easing herself up onto the hard cot.

“Madam President, can I get you anything?” Billy’s quiet voice barely cut through the fog as she ground her knuckles into the knot behind her knee.

“Some water and a valium wouldn’t go astray.” She winced, rolling onto her back, the muscles in her jaw working furiously. Laura managed to kick off her other shoe as the hatch clanged behind him and her eyes flinched shut at the noise. It was cool in the dark though, quieter, and so she kept them that way.

Galactica’s air cycling system rattled through the walls, sending a cool wave of recycled air through the vents. Playing pleasantly over the warm flush of her skin.

_“Laura.”_

_The sound carried easily on the breeze. She recognized it… but it was wrong… it shouldn’t be here…_

_But the close, grey confines of her prison cell were jagged under her hands. The bars thickening to boles of coarse bark beneath her fingertips, the dry crumble of foliage needling her bare feet. Where was here?_

_The roiling rumble was building again; heaving with all the magnitude of a seismic event, rolling under her feet until the vibrations churned her stomach. Forcing her forward. Away. Anywhere. Anywhere but here. Just away._

_“Laura.”_

_The sound of her name drew her like a siren call. Darting through the trees in her pursuit. Gasping at the shock of a stray branch catching against her cheek and again when a hand clapped over her mouth and dragged her out of sight._

_She’d done this before. She could smell him._

_Her heart pounded in her chest. Clear in the knowledge that, if she turned to face her apparent savior, she knew exactly who she’d find._

_“Laura.” Leoben breathed against the shell of her ear, so close it raised the hairs on the back of her neck, and shuddered when he fingered a length of her hair._

“STOP!” a voice shrieked, the awful sound forcing her eyes open.

The space spun strangely. Tipping one way and then the other. Blurred around the edges. She dug her fingers into Leoben’s arms to steady herself but felt only rigid cloth beneath her hands.

She shuffled away and looked back for him. She felt strangely weightless, her limbs fuzzy and far away. As if she were controlling a marionette. She watched her hand as she lifted each finger in succession. It seemed to take an awfully long time. Like moving under water.

_“What’s wrong with her?”_

_“I don’t know, but she’s clearly sick. You can see that, can’t you?”_

_“But there’s nothing I can do.”_

She got to her feet as if a stranger had done it. Where was she?

But the world had fractured like an old photo frame. If she could just see past the cracks…

“Madam President?” a familiar voice asked tentatively.

“Yes?” and she clung to it like a lifeline.

“Can I get you anything while you’re in the brig?” he spoke slowly, deliberately. With such great tenderness and care.

_The brig._

The pieces slid back into place as smoothly as someone turning a dial.

“Oh…. Billy.” She’d recognize those anxious brown eyes more readily than her own. “No, thank you.” And glanced over to find the Corporal gazing at her with intent concern before moving away; satisfied his charge was unharmed. “I’m sorry…” she whispered, trying to find a point on his face to focus on as the room threatened to shatter again, “I’m finding it… hard to… think.” And shuddered with the tremor that crawled up her spine. “It’s withdrawal.”

“The chamalla.”

“Yes.” She snatched at the thin scrap of sanity waving at the very front of her mind as the void tried to swallow her back.

“I’m trying to get you more.” But he wavered in and out of focus and sweat pricked at her brow with the effort.

“Go fast.” Feeling around for a solid surface to rest against Laura knew it wouldn’t be fast enough. The backs of her legs stuttered against the bed frame and she lay back gingerly as the room spun; squeezing her eyes shut. Hoping she wouldn’t float away.

_When she opened them again the light was so bright her hand shot up to shield them against the glare. Squinting, peeking between her fingers, she gazed up at the high-vaulted ceiling overheard, its gilded archways looming like a glittering spiders web. The room was cavernous, the air thick like a temple, seemingly larger than the space it occupied. In its center, illuminated in the brilliant sheaf of light, lay a woman._

_L_ _aura’s first instinct was to look away._

_She was naked to the waist, her pale skin luminous against the white marble floor. Black hair rippling beneath her in a single sheet of unbroken ebony. A heavy veil of black velvet cast over her hips, concealing her legs. She supposed she could be called beautiful, her face bright in ecstatic rapture. Spine arched against the white stone to offer her breast to the heavens. Her knees rising to her center, never enough to displace the black shroud obscuring her legs._

_Laura felt her own limbs carry her as if on their own accord, drawing her in closer. She shivered despite the warmth of the light, every nerve searing in protest. She did not want to get any closer. Every instinct screamed to stay away. But a breath like a whisper ruffled her hair and pushed her on._

_"Laura.” It called, brushing her cheek with an ease that was unwelcome._

_The black cloth rippled about the woman’s legs and reflected her own visage back to her. And when she knelt to touch it; found it wet. Tried to grasp it only to have her hand sink beneath the surface of a still pool of water. Her head snapped up to search for the woman and found her floating serenely. Her black hair billowing out over her shoulders in the gentle ebb of the current. The glassy pane broken only by the hardened peak of each nipple as it breached the surface. She made no move to keep from sinking, suspended as she was in her divinity. Laura tried to push herself back from the edge but found she could not move, caught as surely as the woman was in the same black fate._

_Her fingers brushed against the woman’s arm and her eyes snapped open, as if it were the first she’d realised Laura was there. Laura flinched away as if the touch had scalded her. She felt naked. Obscene. An intruder._

_“_ _The woman wanderer goes forth to seek the land of freedom.” Her voice was surprisingly low pitched, even calming, but the words came breathless as if from the throes of wondrous revelation._

_The land of freedom?_

_“_ _Earth! Do you mean Earth?” But the woman’s eyes closed once more and cast them into darkness as easily as if she’d drawn a curtain._

_“_ _How do we get there?” she whispered to the void._

_The voice came soft again, breathy against her skin, but when she spoke it was her grandmother’s voice, “There is one way, and only one. Down the banks of labour. Through the water of suffering…there is no other.” And a grip like a vice closed on her wrist to drag her under._

_She did not scream, holding her breath tight to not flood her lungs with water, but when she shook off the grip she fought only air._

_Shaking with a cold that leeched her to her bones; Laura staggered to her feet and looked to the darkened sky for the roll of thunder that pressed heavy in her ears. But only the vaulted ceiling winked back as the hammering roar grew louder and louder, beating down on the floor until it trembled. The sounds of feet in their thousands… thousands of thousands. Rushing until the ground seized as they bore down on her, throwing her down to the ground once more, unable to meet their onslaught._

_Unequal to task._

_Cool hands cradled her face and tipped it once more to the sky._

_"And over a bridge built with bodies shall follow the entire human race."_

_The gaze that found hers was as distant as the instant of creation and there she saw herself reflected; stranded in a stream of stars._

_“_ _They are the feet of those who shall follow you..." she smiled, "Lead on.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hallucinations from psychedelic withdrawal doesn't seem like an awful lot of fun at the best of times but it just seems to be exponentially worse when you've been dubbed the Dying Leader of Humanity.  
> Almost none of this dialogue is my own, some coming from the episode "Fragged" and the rest from Olive Schreiner's "Three Dreams in a Desert." which I feel would probably have been as poignant to Roslin as Pythia.


	14. Chain of Command

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doc Cottle takes his Oath seriously.

His fingers were twisting at the cap before he realized he’d even reached for it. Surrendering to the blessed relief of that sweet, sharp burn evaporating at the back of his throat. Distraction enough for just for a moment of clarity...

Clarity to comprehend that this was entirely the wrong moment. He paused, the grooves of the flask mouth held fast between his teeth… but one more couldn’t hurt now. And he swigged back again. Just once, just to drown the sound of Ellen’s voice ringing in his ears.

Still braced against the wall, Saul jerked his head from one side to the other. It was a quick, practiced movement meant to burst the tension that threatened to roll his head right off of his shoulders. It just didn’t seem to work as well as it used to.

He could do this. He told himself as he rubbed angrily at the tight knot in the nape of his neck. He _had_ done this…Bill trusted him to do this… and then swigged twice more to disguise the entirely different burn in his chest.

Martial Law was not ideal. But nothing about this entire Gods-damned situation was frakking ideal. The idea that William Adama had been elevated to the highest-ranking officer in the Colonial Fleet, Commander of the last remaining Battlestar, was acceptable. Sure. The Secretary of Education… President? Laughable. And he, Saul Tigh, solely responsible for the last 50 odd thousand remnants of their entire civilization? Insane. Unthinkable. Utterly untenable.

There was no way this was going to hold. Not for long anyway. In fairness, it didn’t need to. He just needed a moment of peace. To shut up the Press. To clear his head. Let his men maintain the status quo just until the Old Man woke up. Then he could deal with Roslin, deal with the Quorum and go back to ordering him to deal with the rest.

This was not the deal. This had never been the deal. He was not a leader of men. He was an enforcer. Saul Tigh was not an even-tempered man, not a likeable man, arguably not even a good man, but he had never pretended to be anything otherwise. A distinct difference, he thought, from the woman currently enjoying the hospitality of Galactica’s brig.

He leaned his head against the cool steel of the causeway, trying to force the warm flush in his face back below the collar of his uniform. Frakking Roslin… She had looked just about 3 sheets to the wind when he had first walked in. Sweating quietly with the all the strain of a person trying desperately to keep it together long enough for the officer to give you back your keys and let you drive home. It was a situation so familiar and, from experience, so doomed to failure that he couldn’t help but parade this one small victory. And then she opened her damned mouth.

He should have checked first! Should have known better than to trust his wife!

Saul resisted the immediate urge to slam his fist into the wall. Inhaled hard through his nose and stuffed the flask back into his sock instead.

No.

Laura Roslin; coherent agitator was one thing. Laura Roslin; dying prophet was another thing entirely. Ellen couldn’t have known that. Hell, _he_ didn’t know that...

Why didn’t he know that?

Laura Roslin did not intimidate him. He was a difficult man to threaten even under ideal circumstances, but he could not deny that she frequently unsettled him. Her unique propensity to appear shorthanded, always teetering on the verge of defeat. Only to leave you flat on your back, reeling on the proverbial mat, trying to piece together what had just happened while she surged ahead. And he was just about done with always starting on the back foot. He pushed himself back off the wall and stalked back through the hatch combing.

The telltale haze of smoke that overlaid the persistent olfactory ambiance of disinfectant let him know that at least his ire wouldn’t have to wait. He yanked back the flimsy screen shielding the Doctor and his x-rays from the rest of the ward.

“Would you care to explain why I was forced to discover that _Madam_ President has one foot in the grave in front of the entire Quorum rather than from my Chief Medical Officer?” He barked as it clattered against the opposite wall, “You didn’t think that information might be worth sharing with your Commanding Officer?”

Cottle took the time to stuff his hands into his coat pockets and drag out his lighter. Eyes narrowing as his XO breathed a little too close to his face.

“Madam President?” he scowled around his cigarette, “You saw to that, didn’cha?” and he flicked off the light board with a hard jerk of his hand.

“The Old Man put that woman in the brig not me.” He growled back immediately, stepping forward to draw his height over the older man, “I followed my orders in accordance with my oath. I only expected that you do the same.”

But Cottle stepped further into his space.

“My _**oath**_?” and snatched his cigarette from his mouth, threatening to singe the lines of Tigh’s uniform with every movement, “My oath dictates that regardless of who she is, or what she’s done, Laura Roslin is still entitled to Doctor-Patient confidentiality under Colonial Law.” The underlying threat much louder than his tone, “Or are you planning to scuttle that too?”

Cottle had come in so close that Saul would soon need to take a step back just to maintain eye contact, each accusatory jab of his yellowed finger scattering his boots with ash.

“You have jeopardized the security of the entire fleet by concealing that woman’s medical status, Major.”

“That woman, is the Commander-in-Chief, Colonel.”


	15. Keep Me In The Open

She put up a good show of trying to appear casual. Her legs splayed out in some semblance of comfort on the damp tarp, but her posture gave her away.

“You interfered with a military mission and you broke your word to me.”

He should have been angry with her, furious even. This woman who had almost irreparably splintered their fleet, single-handedly flushed morale down the toilet, and effectively stolen his children out from underneath him.

“It’s the last part that really bothers you isn’t it.”

She sat stiffly. Her shoulders held tight, spine ramrod straight. Still every inch of the President even when there was only empty space between them instead of a desk. Fingers tense around the cover of a book rather than dark wood. A backdrop of green valleys instead of the Colonial flag. The familiarity jarred a startling realization to the forefront of his mind; that he actually didn’t know Laura well enough to know if she was just always this way. And he had never made any real effort to remedy that fact, to stop this from happening in the first place.

The thought gave him pause for a moment and Bill took in the woman kneeling across from him. Her damp hair sticking limply to her pale, strained face. Clutching at her book of scriptures like a lifeline. Trembling, even in the jacket that didn’t belong to her. She had done it all, and would no doubt do it all again, for a far more noble reason than he had ripped her off her pedestal for. She had done it and everything that had come before because she believed, with every fiber of her being, that it had been the right thing to do.

“Laura, I forgive you.” He was surprised at just how easily the words slipped out, but she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Something that might have been amusement glinting bright in eyes the same colour as the surrounding trees. How long had it been since she’d heard her own name?

“Thank you, _Bill_ ,” and something of the steel returned, “but I didn’t ask for your forgiveness.”

The words stung more than they were meant to.

Why, for the love of the gods, couldn’t she just let it rest for a moment? Insist on fighting when they were already so tired? He took a deep breath and looked away, glimpsing his son wringing his hands, melting some of his stress away in the heat of the fire. Starbuck beside him, grinning happily, with a rifle held tight and ready in her own. Perhaps it was just reflex at this point.

Oddly enough, she reminded him of Kara, and almost shook his head at the ridiculousness of the thought as he looked between two women who could not have been more different. But while Starbuck tried to hide her own intense melancholy behind a hefty wall of bravado and aggression, Laura delicately veiled her own with temperance and a smile. So close to the surface, so ingrained in her charm, that it slipped right on by. Perhaps time and wisdom had tempered its expression, but it was still a reflex and they were hard to break.

“Well… you have it anyway.”

* * *

“Madam President?” Bill raised his head as he heard Billy call out from the stern of the Raptor.

Laura was standing at the lip of the ridge, feet shoulder width apart, her hair inching lower and lower down the back of her jacket with every driving sheet of rain. He handed his rifle off to the Chief; busy stowing the last of the cargo, and ducked out from under the tarp.

With a heavy and purposeful hand on the boy’s shoulder, Bill directed him back towards the Raptor and shuffled up the ridge. He moved a little more loudly than necessary, not wanting to startle her.

“Madam President?" he rumbled gently as he drew level with her shoulder, "We’re ready to go.”

Her eyes were closed, eyelashes twitching in surprise with every drop that landed on her face, palms open to the heavens.

“I should be sick of the rain.” She offered smoothly, her lip curling in a lazy, sardonic smile, before blinking open her eyes to address him. Her eyes were bright and glassy and, despite the chill of the rain on her skin, Bill was certain that if he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead he would not be surprised to find it warm.

“I just wanted to remember what it felt like.” She apologized quietly in a tone he had never heard before. It trembled around the edges while trying to convince itself of the strength at its center, moments away from breaking apart. And so, he stood beside her, silent and steady, watching the sun rise until she was ready to lower her hands.

“We’ll find it, Laura.” He promised when she finally tucked her hands back into her pockets, startled at how the words grated against the lump in his throat.

He tried to force it down. Swallowing hard several times until she caught him in her calm and level gaze. Her smile creased her eyes at the corners, glowing with more than the warmth of a low-grade fever, and for a moment he saw it.

“I know you will.”

Whether it was tranquillity or divinity that illuminated Laura Roslin on Kobol made no difference to him; he’d follow her anywhere.


	16. Stand by Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adama reflects on his position in the wake of the arrival of the Pegasus.

The causeways bustled with more energy than a Condition One setting. Pilots clambering over each other in their hurry to find clean duty blues, engineering teams scrambling from their stations to help the deck crew clear room in the landing bay. Even the President tried to reign in the entirely improper skip to her step as she matched pace with the Colonel and the Commander. But she was failing as surely as she was fighting to keep the grin off her face.

Saul sent him a loaded, side-long glance as he pushed ahead of their little committee, intent on imposing some measure of order on deck before the Commander, or the Admiral, could witness the disarray of his crew firsthand. Bill did not miss the look his XO had shot over the bouncing, red mane of the President. You did not serve with a man for 25 years and drink with him for 30 without picking up on a few things.

He felt strangely suspended in time, staring down the fork of a long crossroad, nothing to ground him but the clicking of heels and the subtle brush of fabric against his arm as she dodged out of the way of two rushing lieutenants. Halfway through shucking out of their flight suits, completely unaware they had nearly sent the President to the deck. Bill glanced down for quick onceover just to make sure she wasn’t hurt but, on the contrary, she looked positively radiant. Glowing despite the harsh light, almost bouncing with an energy that he knew she was finding harder and harder to hold onto.

He held out an arm to stop her decent down the ladder, it didn’t really matter the order in which they climbed down the damn thing but, considering he had accidentally upskirted her the last time she was here, it seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. Bill doubted that her anticipation allowed any inkling of confusion to find a foothold and she took his brief and silent insistence easily in stride and followed half a step behind. The deck was so busy he doubted anyone would have noticed but that was beside the point. She was the President of the Colonies for Hera’s sake.

Saul was still barking out a snapped mix orders and aphorisms when they stepped away from the ladder; wrangling the last of the stragglers into ranks. It was where he was comfortable, where he thrived. Saul was too much a soldier to exist at the top for very long. Bill thought that he had been too, his command of the Valkyrie disastrous proof enough of that. Swiftly relegated to an old, floating bucket to see out the rest of his military career as far away from active duty and the attention of the Admiralty as possible. Happily left to rattle around the halls of the ship that had seen his glory days as an officer. But now, poised to relieve his shoulders of the crushing weight and tip the heavy mantle over to Admiral Cain…

“Where do I stand?” a soft voice murmured close to his ear, hitching slightly in its uncertainty.

Laura was shaking with nervous excitement, tipping her hair back over her shoulders to clean up the lines of her suit. Tugging down her blazer so it sat flush against her chest and shaking the creases out the sleeves. He took her arm gently to stop her fidgeting and escorted her down the line to the front of the small crowd. 

“Stand by me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short but my original draft was about a quarter of the size.


	17. No Hard Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura wants to leave Bill with one last gift but receives a greater one in return.

_When my body won't hold me anymore and it finally lets me free_   
_Will I be ready?_   
_When my feet won't walk another mile and my lips give their last kiss goodbye_   
_Will my hands be steady?_   
**The Avett Brothers**

Laura raised her hand up off the arm of her chair. Not quite at chest height. Watching her fingertips quiver.

They were doing that more now.

She felt strangely ethereal, almost untethered. As if her body simply could not contain her anymore, weighed down as it was in crushing fatigue and disease. She could almost felt herself tugging away, longing to be unburdened, only to find herself still safely secured to solid ground. Shielded in the protective presence of Bill Adama and the warmth of his hand gently clutching hers in a silent plea to stay... Just a little while longer.

She had never expected to treasure the small moments when he came to her, decidedly without agenda, to sit and talk. To find comfort in the smooth rumble of his whiskey soothed timbre, the sheer weight of his being, and bask in the mundanity of it all. It was funny to think that once, not that long ago, she would have to force her way onto his ship just to get him to return her calls. Now he came willingly. Almost every day.

War, indeed, made for strange bedfellows.

_I’m not dying today._

She repeated it often. Enough so that when she finally said it aloud, she could almost convince him. But she was dying every day. Faster with every passing hour.

He knew it.

She could feel it.

She knew that it hurt him to see her like that. Saw the tears he tried to valiantly to keep from her. So, she willed her fingers to still. Just this once. Just long enough that she could do this for him.

“Madam President, Commander Adama is here.” Billy offered from the door, jarring her from her thoughts before retreating to the safe vantage point of her desk.

Another person might have thought it presumptuous for an aide to sit in the chair of the president but there was not a presumptive bone in that boy’s body and Laura was still lucid enough to see it for what it was. An attempt to distance himself far enough away for a conversation to remain intimate but close enough to remain vigilant.

She plucked at the sleeve of the jacket Billy had so kindly dressed her in. A feeble attempt to straighten something that did not need fixing and clasped her hands loosely in her lap.

They talked about Admiral Cain and the escaped cylon. Of course they did, protocol must be observed, but it did not take long before Bill could no longer contain the real reason he was there.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, this stoic, enigmatic man she was strangely intertwined with.

“Well,” she defended as brightly as she could manage, “I could sleep for about a year but…” she shrugged it off, this was not about her, not this time, “but you, however, do not have that luxury because you have a new job… Billy?”

And Billy leaned into their space just enough to hand over the small, black box.

“Took a little while to find that jeweler.” He apologized.

“Thank you.” She whispered.

She could see the suspicion flare up in the blue of his eyes, staring intently in a hope to break the secret out of her, but Laura focused her gaze determinedly on her knees and swallowed down the smile that threatened to ruin the surprise.

“Now… rumour has it that I know very little about military protocol,” she started seriously, failing almost immediately in keeping the grin from her face, “but I do believe that someone who commands more than once ship is called an Admiral _…_ ”

She proffered the box, thanking the Gods that her hands were steady, and reveled happily in the expression of disbelief on her friend’s face.

“Congratulations _Admiral_ Adama.” She clutched her hands together again quickly to mask their quiet quaking and watched on with a bittersweet smile as Bill examined his shiny new pips in their velvet casing. Her last gift to him. A burden all the same. Her trust, in corporeal form, that he would keep his promise.

“Thank you, Madam President… Thank you Billy. I, um, never gave up hope… I just stopped trying to get these a long time ago.”

He cleared his throat, surreptitiously, avoiding her eyes.

“Just goes to show you, Bill… never give up hope.”

“Same goes for you, Laura.” And suddenly those blue eyes bore holes to her soul. 

The words struck her deep in her chest, harder than she expected, and she felt her chin tremble with the effort to keep her face from crumpling with the tears that threatened to overflow. She knew he cared for her. Knew he would miss her. Just not this much.

“Alright…” she started, trying to get up, trying to escape before she ruined everything.

And he was there, constant and steadfast, to help her to her feet as if it were mere gallantry rather than necessity. Steadied her, even as she stumbled, and lifted her chin with a gentle touch of his fingers.

She smiled tremulously, knowing it was in vain. Her eyes were wet now. There was no disguising it.

And then he leaned in and pressed his lips tenderly against hers.

She felt her soul lift for an instant, momentarily unburdened by this purest of exchanges.

Responded shyly in the moment before he broke away. Humming contentedly as she remembered what if felt like to be human, keeping her eyes closed just a moment longer to savour it before it was gone. 

It was a simple gesture. Easily offered and easily taken...

So why did it feel so heavy?

This gesture of tender permission. That she could go.

Go with his gratitude and respect. With his affection. And with no hard feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delayed update and rusty writing. To say that the past few weeks have been stressful would be an understatement of tremendous proportions.


	18. Laura of OldStones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee and Laura reflect on their near-death experiences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a little Lee perspective.  
> Roughly around the time of Black Market, before or after is up to you.

_The ones who’d been gone for so very long,_

_She couldn’t remember their name,_

_They spun her around on the damp cold stones,_

_Spun away all her sorrows and pain._

_-Jenny of Oldstones_

Lee Adama liked to think that he was an observant man. In fact, as Commander of the Galactica Air Group he rather hoped to the Gods that he was. But Lee was convinced that even a blind man could see that the pretense of gathering in the Admiral’s quarters under the guise of the comfort of the President had long surpassed even passing credibility. In fact, the only person who got to their feet faster than her was Lee, and that was on a good day.

Lee had not been blind to his father’s innate chivalry when the President had been ill, even despite their earlier and intense misgivings. He saw how often not even Billy could have been closer to her side. How steadfast he was in her protection as she was in his trust. 

He noticed that he still moved to help her stand and always offered his arm to escort her on the paltry journey from the hatch to his couch. Saw the President accept each gesture with what was always a gracious though, perhaps, weary smile. Watched how, especially when Tigh and Commander Garner were absent, she would pause and wait for the Old Man to haul himself up before attempting to rise herself. Take his hand as if it were the balm to all her troubles.

No. The only reason he could see for this continued arrangement when there was a perfectly good wardroom not 200 meters away was that his father quite liked having her in his quarters and she, in turn, rather enjoyed being there.

Today was no different.

Despite the Admiral’s abrupt departure, the President dawdled in collecting her things and, for no discernable reason, Lee dragged his own feet. Feeling rather like an overzealous student hoping to speak to his teacher alone as he fiddled uselessly with the sleeve of his uniform. But Laura packed away her papers with a fastidiousness that he was not sure was warranted even before the Fall of the Colonies.

“Something else, Captain?” She asked without lifting her head, flicking her gaze over the rim of her glasses instead.

“Uhh…” Lee fumbled.

_Was there anything?_

He was not jealous… not in any way that he could reliably pinpoint… but the sudden shift in her confidence from him to his father… he couldn’t deny it didn’t sting. He had always been told, over and over, that he was just like his father. The same praise, the same admonition, until the words just failed to register anymore. But perhaps that wasn’t true. Perhaps he was just a serviceable substitute, a stand in, a glorified placeholder until the real thing became available.

The silence had stretched far too long now. His mouth hanging like a gaping fish.

“How are you Lee?” she asked in a much softer voice, and he felt the Captain drop away with the gentle slump of his shoulders, “I heard that you scared us there for a minute…” she fiddled restlessly with the closure of her bag, “I should have asked you sooner-”

“What? No!” he cut her off sharply, “No… you had your own near-death experience to be dealing with… you didn’t need mine too.”

She smiled a tight, pained smile that tried valiantly to reach her eyes.

“Still…” and he saw her face soften even as concern creased her eyes; the way he had always wished his mother’s would, “Are you ok?”

Lee sat down awkwardly in the seat opposite as he thought furiously for a convincing reply. Painfully aware that there was unlikely to be anyone else in the fleet more uniquely qualified to zero in on whatever half-arsed platitudes he was about to spin than the woman sitting across from him.

_“Is anyone ok?”_

_“I’m doing better.”_

_“I’m sure someone out there has more reason to complain than me...”_

_“I’d be better if the Admiral lets me back in a plane.”_

_“Do you wish they had waited just a moment longer?”_

_“Do you feel guilty? For coming back… for wishing you hadn’t.”_

_“Why me? When there are already so many faces on that wall.”_

“What was it like?” he heard himself blurt out from the whirlwind torrent raging between his ears.

He kept his gaze fixed on the carpet, cheeks flaming, so that if she was surprised by his outburst he at least couldn’t see.

Lee heard the muffled creak of the old leather straining and glanced up just enough to see Laura nestle deeper into her seat. Her arms crossed, slightly too tight to be comfortable, tilting her head just enough for her hair to obscure her face. Lee felt his stomach drop all the way to the floor. His own vanity, his own insecurity forcing this woman to relive what must have been one of the worst experiences of her life. What was meant to be her last one.

But with a slowness that was certainly deliberate Laura unraveled herself enough to tuck her hair back behind her ear. Ensuring that Lee could see her eyes.

In truth, she had been afraid. At least at first. She did not know how she had ended up there; in his quarters. She could have sworn she had just closed her eyes. The lights were all extinguished. Not even the ever-present, red glow to scare away the shadows.

All alone.

Feeling her way through the dark. Searching… but for what?

The hands that had found hers were familiar but without the light she could not make out the face they belonged to. They had thumbed the back of her hands with strong, sure fingers. The pain finally easing with each sure stroke.

The memory of laughter had started soft from some far corner. Drawing her in deeper as a second echo joined the first. Dispelling her fear and filling her chest with warmth… even as the breath leaked out.

Soft hands had brushed her hair back from her eyes to cup her cheeks and the arms that had circled her waist were warm. Gods she’d forgotten what it was to be warm…

And then a wrench so violent she could have sworn her soul was torn away and lights so bright her eyes begged to return to the dark…

“I never wanted to leave.” She admitted softly.


	19. Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill tries to help Laura prepare for the Presidential debate.

_Maybe you ran with the wolves and refused to settle down,_

_Maybe I’ve stormed out of every single room in this town,_

_T_ _hrew out our cloaks and daggers because its morning now.”_

_\- Daylight, Taylor Swift_

It was no secret that he did not like politics.

Truth be told he couldn’t give a damn about the debate either. Of course, he wanted her to win, any sane person would. But he couldn’t think of a worse way to spend his down time than to watch Gaius Baltar and Laura Roslin exchange limp, verbal blows in one of his larger ready rooms.

Was she perfect? Gods no! If he could turn far enough around to check, he was pretty sure he sported the evidence of her absolute pain in his arse. But she had proven herself to be beyond competent and if he was forced to choose who he’d rather spend his days arguing with… well… he’d choose Laura.

He supposed that was why he’d offered his quarters to prepare. He wasn’t going to stay and watch but he wanted to at least wish her luck.

She’d grown, if not comfortable, then at least acclimated with his space. Even with his things. If there was no official business to be had she no longer waited for an invitation to sit down. Often picking her way over to the very center of his couch, losing her shoes along the way.

But that was not where he found her when he finally clocked off.

She was muttering at double pace under her breath. Eyes flashing across a note card so fast she could have been having a seizure. But then she ripped the page in half and threw it over her head. The falling pieces fluttering down to rest amongst their fallen brethren and Laura’s shoes. At least some things stayed the same.

Unwilling to disrupt her cocoon of preparatory intensity he simply poured two glasses of water and waited for a break in her paper tearing.

“Sorry about the mess.” She apologised as he proffered the glass, “It’s a bit of a ritual… Superstition really…” and took a self-conscious sip. “I used to do this before testifying at committee hearings. This is what I do, I take… a card. Memorise the talking point, then tear the card, let the pieces fall as they may. It helps.”

He watched her sense of false serenity fall over her as surely as her hands fell into a familiar, dignified position; clasped loosely in front of her like a ballerina.

“Yeah, my father used to break pencils before he went into court, then borrow one from the clerk.” He offered in an attempt to soothe her jangling nerves, “Break preconceptions. Work with what you have.”

“You know, I like that. Let me see.” And she rushed over to the table and snatched up her pencil, “I like it.” Snapped it clean in half as if she’d being doing it for the past 3 hours and took a long steadying breath. Her hands falling back into her former relaxed, dignified pose.

“That’s good.”

“Feel better?”

“Yeah…” before her nerves drained the colour from her face again, “but what if the moderator doesn’t have a pencil?”

“Then you’re pretty screwed.” He didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t a burst of girlish giggles that sounded like they’d escaped a high school archive. He tried to keep a straight face as she waved him off, fighting to keep herself together.

“Oh.” Before failing completely.

“Oh no.” she squeaked out as giggles bubbled in her chest like cheap champagne, “I … used to get the giggles before debate team… in high school.”

 _That explains an awful lot._ Bill thought with a smile and small chortle of his own before a knock clanged all the air out of the room.

“Yes?” and in an instant the façade fell back into place.

“It’s time, Madam President.”

“Thank you, Tory.”

Bill struggled to keep his face impassive as he stood and offered his arm as she stepped back into her shoes. He heard the long, shaky breath she took before she raised her head again. For an instant he was looking into the hard and resolute face of the President. Until a wide smile shattered the mask and Laura burst into that same uninhibited laugh that broke against him like sunshine. She gripped his arm tighter as she doubled over, shoulders shaking with the effort to tamp it back down.

He took a fortifying step forward as the shadow of Tory’s impatience darkened his doorway again but found himself pulled back as Laura shored up her grip in a movement reminiscent of Zak’s first day of school. Doubly so when she buried her face in the shoulder of his uniform.

“Are you serious?” a short, sharp voice interrupted.

And it was all Bill could do to drag her forward, her weight hanging comfortably from the crook of his elbow, the scent of spring lilting through the corridors with every frustrated shake of her head.

“You just have to really try to think about something serious.” He urged even as he could no longer deny the grin tugging at the corners of his own mouth, “That always helps. All right?

“Like what?” she managed to choke out in a serious voice.

“Well like…” she rallied for less that half a second before she caught his eye and collapsed all over again and this time he happily tumbled after her.

Two discordant voices lighting up his Battlestar with a moment of shared ridiculousness.

“Great.” Tory drawled from a few steps ahead, just loud enough for them to hear but Bill Adama could not have been further away from caring.

He’d spent the last 20 years in the dark. It felt good to revel in the daylight.


	20. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura accepts she's lost the Presidency.

She appeared almost timidly in the frame of the hatch. As if she were unsure she was welcome without the seal of her office and the mask of the president. She clasped her hands in front of her as she stepped into his quarters, eyes downcast as if in apology.

He was not surprised to see her… though surprised probably was not the right word. He’d come to expect her presence, there was something of comfort in her proximity, a pleasant warmth. He welcomed it. But her presence as the President was expected.

She came to him as Laura. Bared by more than the absence of her jacket.

“I’m sorry.” She started, her eyes flitting to a point on the wall behind his ear before dropping back to her hands, “I didn’t… I didn’t know where else to go.” She confessed with a breathy sigh.

She shifted her weight anxiously between her feet. Not half as subtly as she had as Baltar took his oath and her office.

She was not wholly unfamiliar. As if she had been a friend he’d known in childhood… the person who had almost pushed Secretary Roslin aside to fight bare-knuckled against Commander Adama over a computer network before fading back behind the resigned and weary façade. She was the woman who sometimes peeked out from behind the shoulder of President Roslin, who had let him hold her hand when she had been dying. Who let him glimpse at the person he might have known if they’d met for coffee somewhere in Caprica City and not in the causeway of a Battlestar she was decommissioning.

He’d met her before. But he did not know her very well.

Bill stood up from the table, remembering halfway that he probably should have closed the file over the papers marked ‘confidential’, and took her gently by the arm. It was a paltry gesture, he knew, but what else could he offer her. The decision had been hers, but he had laid it at her feet. Now she was here, surrounded by the familiarity of his belongings while her own hands were empty.

“You are always welcome here.”

She offered up a weak smile at the apology she heard in his voice, finally meeting his gaze. Relief shaded the watery sage of her eyes.

She seemed smaller somehow. More fragile… more human.

The subtle pressure of his fingers on her upper arm directed her to the couch and she sat hesitantly, perched on the edge as if to take flight, while he poured her a glass of water.

“I’d have had tea,” he murmured, handing the glass to her, “if I’d known you were coming.” He hoped it was enough. Enough for her to know that she could stay. Here. With him. As long as she needed. As long as she wanted.

But she tapped her nails against the glass absently, restlessly.

He poured a second for himself and sat down across from her, letting the soft, worn leather consume him.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, more bluntly than he had meant to but his direct question seemed to elicit some of her former focus. Her eyes snapped up to meet his.

“What else can I do?”

He had never heard her sound so resigned, so utterly apathetic, but was at least relieved to hear an undercurrent of absolute anger tint her timbre.

“You could stay here.” It slipped out easily before he could call it back, but she took it without so much as a raised eyebrow.

“Never was very good at taking orders.” She said, a smirk tugging the corner of her mouth, and she finally eased back into the cushions. Giggling softly until Bill joined in, shoulders shaking with the rumbling in his chest, her hair curtaining her face as she descended further into mirth. At the absolute absurdity of their working relationship. They had survived a nuclear holocaust, they had survived the Cylons, and by some miracle they had survived each other.

“Much harder after you’ve been the one giving them.” He agreed with the ghost of laughter still on his lips.

She sighed, still listing slightly off to one side and pushed back her hair.

“I need to be useful.” She murmured, sobering quickly, “I need to have a purpose.”

“So, what are you going to do?” he repeated.

She had swallowed down her mortality in exchange for their survival. If that was the price that the Gods demanded, then she would pay it in full and unflinching. Because that was her purpose. But her body had failed before she could even try, and so the Gods had played with her again. She thought she’d been given a second chance, to find them a home, to find Earth… 

Maybe she just wasn’t worthy.

“I am going to go down to that planet and…” the words seemed to falter in her throat, her breath hitching for a moment as if she might cry.

What was she going to do?

“Okay.” He offered as gently as he could, a measure of his acceptance and a promise of his support.

It took less than a week for the Baltar Administration to send it’s first civilian team to the surface and Laura was determined to be on it, citing she’d taken up far too much of his time and his space already. It was one of her more transparent lies.

Bill could not deny that he extended absences were only exacerbating the issue, but he had expected more than 5 days to barter and extort his way through the Galactica’s supply stores and he could not deny that growling at his subordinated in a vaguely threatening manner was a decent distraction from that fact that Laura was leaving.

He knew there was no reason to stay. She had never been enamored with space even before her forced incarceration in it. She was not meant to be kept in the dark. Not when she glowed even in artificial sunshine, her hair burning bright like burnished copper and every shift of her head flowed like a warm stream in Autumn. She belonged somewhere green with purple flowers, where the wind could lift her hair and the rain could make her eyelashes twitch in quiet rapture at the beauty of it all. She didn’t belong on a Battlestar.

He breathed a sigh of relief to see her reading when he came home, holed up in her usual spot, her feet tucked up under her, her left hand absently combing through her hair. He thought he was too late.

He dropped the satchel by the coffee table, balancing a pair of worn tactical boots on top.

“I, uh… got you a few things,” he mumbled as she closed her book with a quizzical glare, “It took me a while to find a pair close to your size…” he gestured vaguely at the boots, “Not many women your size join the marines…”

She cut him off with a gentle hand laid on his forearm. The knot in his gut urged him to cover it with his own.

“Good luck, Laura.” 

It felt awfully like goodbye.


	21. Founder's Day

He did not want to go down to that planet. Play his part in the President’s masquerade. Pretend that this was the ending that they deserved.

“Come on Bill.” Saul growled from his seat on the couch, his sash already sliding from his shoulder, the cup in his hand tilted dangerously; threatening to mark the leather, “We’ve been on this ship so long we’re practically welded to the floor. What’s a little formality for some solid ground under your feet… you’ve dealt with more for less…” he examined the crumpled flyer a little more closely, “There’s an open bar.” He added as if it were incentive.

Adama reached across the coffee table, damp towel still slung over his shoulder, and took the cup from his XO’s hand.

“Doesn’t mean you need a head-start.” He grumbled, setting it down on the cart and finally crossing to his closet.

“Live a little, Bill.” He jibed, hauling himself to his feet, “enjoy the break until those gods-damned people realise that Roslin was right about that hunk of rock and we get moving again,” he reclaimed his drink from the cart with a pointed snatch, “About time you took a vacation anyway.” And he tottered through the open hatch.

“Skids up in 40.” His bark echoed through the empty causeway.

Bill ignored him. Brushed aside his dress greys and pulled down his jacket, pushing the shiny buttons through the worn holes and smoothing down the ends of his moustache. His Admiral’s pips were on the bookcase where he’d left them, beneath the photograph of the former President; the one who’d entrusted him with them.

She looked so serious, he thought as he fixed them to his collar.

She was a serious woman, he reasoned… most of the time, and he smiled at the echo of her helpless giggles. Only a few steps from where he stood now. Torn speaking cards littering the floor, her shoes discarded by the table, practically hanging off his arm as he escorted her through his ship.

He looked at her perhaps more closely than he had trusted himself to before.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about her, certainly a handsome woman in her middle age. The creases around her eyes deepened when she smiled. Whether it was that tight, polished smile that seemed permanently fixed when she was trying to choke down something unpleasant but especially when it was a rarer kind. The kind that broke her face with radiant joy, lighting up the sage green of her eyes to rich emerald.

Even better when she laughed. It was a sunny sound that made his gut clench and his mouth smile as if in reflex. With her head tipped back to expose the long lines of her neck, her hair falling over her shoulders. Shoulders that would set in equal time with her mouth when she was pissed, her feet shoulder width apart as if to plant herself. An unmovable object. An absolute pain in his ass.

Bill smirked to himself and straightened his uniform. He couldn’t look completely disheveled.


	22. First Day of my Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura shows Bill where she wants to build her cabin.

_Yours was the first face that I saw_   
_I think I was blind before I met you_   
_And I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been_   
_But I know where I want to go_

_\- Bright Eyes_

Could a moment last forever?

The ground was somewhere between silt and sand. Marbled white and grey. Streaked with reddish brown. It rolled grittily between his fingers, catching against the ridges and smudging into his pores, gave under the slightest shift of weight. Swept along to huddle against the bare smattering of stones along the beach. Whitewashed and worn like the salted shores of Aerilon.

Even if he laid the few wandering pieces of his memory out in front of him, he doubted he could piece together how they got here.

A bottle of stolen liquor lolling in one hand. Laura’s shoes balanced in the other.

A clutch of purple flowers winked out of a thin tuft of scrawny grass. Waving lazily in the lilting throes of the afternoon breeze. The pointed petals unfurled like the outstretched arm of a ballerina. Delicate and lithe. Their inky colour watered to soft violet. Barely larger than a fingernail. Stretching out to warm under the gentle kiss of the orange sun. Each cradling a cloud of opalescent pollen; coveted at its center.

The afternoon nimbus glanced off the water, shattering yellow diamonds onto the rippling surface.

The gentle rush of water… lapping gently at the sparkling shore. The ebb… and flow… forward… and back.

Over and again.

The steady rise and fall of lungs at rest.

An earthy breath.

She stood just a little way out. Enough to clasp her long skirt loosely in hand, gathered up to the thigh, the clear water lapping at the back of her knees. Something had caught her attention enough to draw her forward. Bent until the tips of her hair trailed in the water. Too warm to notice. Too happy to care.

The sun was caught behind her; as if ensnared in her orbit.

It reflected off the water to cast a golden halo and set embers in her hair.

The current pitched her forward a little, eliciting a happy little shriek, and she dropped her skirt to catch her balance again. The red fabric bleeding crimson as it kissed the lake.

Ghosted laughter turned up the corners of her mouth, brightened her cheeks and prettied her eyes as she turned back to him.

Catching what was sure to be the stupidest grin to have ever graced his face.

“What?” she asked, her own smile growing as she splashed back to shore.

Soaked to the waist now. Curls messed merrily over sun-kissed shoulders. A million, tiny incandescent droplets glittering at every wayward strand. The cool promise of coming nightfall raising tiny hairs.

_This is the first day of my life._

He shook his head.

“Nothing.”


	23. New Caprican Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all like New Caprica because we are going to be here for a while.

The breeze had picked up, just shy of being a wind. He felt Laura shift more securely against his side. Her little sigh reverberating in his chest and her hair crinkling against his cheek. He hadn’t ever noticed just how _red_ it was.

Maybe it was the weed… maybe it was the dress. Perhaps it was the benefit of natural light but Gods… her hair.

“Were you actually a blonde?” he heard himself asked.

“Hmm?” she hummed absently, almost sleepily.

“Your hair,” he repeated, “were you actually a blonde?”

She giggled softly against his chest and burrowed her head further into the crook of his neck.

“Bottle.” She breathed against his neck. “Bottle blonde.” Her eyelashes fluttered against the skin above his collar. “Not for very long, mind you, the upkeep… you wouldn’t believe.”

“Experiment of youth?”

“My first year at university.” She agreed, moving her hand closer to where she could feel his heartbeat thump in his chest, her fingernails scratching the wool of his uniform, “I was studying Colonial Literature and the women… My Gods, Bill… Caprican women.”

“Are the worst.” He grumbled before he could stop himself and Laura let out a short shriek of laughter.

“The worst!” and pressed her face into his shoulder to stifle her giggles, “Oh my gods they were awful to me.” She sighed, the ghost of her mirth still lilting in her cadence. “My sisters could have gotten away with it. They were tall… beautiful. Sleek brunettes like my mother.”

“Not Virgon red…” he supplied.

“Not Virgon red.” She agreed and tipped back her head to catch his gaze. Shifting again so that she was pressed more firmly against him, her breasts flush against his ribs, more aware than ever of the sharp peak of her hip under his hand.

Her eyes were dark even in the light that glowed from her tent. Pupils blown wide.

He brushed his fingers over the slippery fabric of her skirt, tracing the line of her hip, grasping it gently.

“I like it.” He husked and was rewarded with a lazy smile.

Space was nothing compared to the depths of her eyes, he decided, not when they stared into him with such intensity as she was now. Threatening to swallow him whole. He traced a path to the dip of her waist, warm in the space between them, pressed his fingers into the softness of her flesh.

She was so close he could feel her nose threaten to brush his own and, when she pressed her lips to his with gentle insistence, his fingers dug deeper.


	24. If we were Cylons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admiral Adama contemplates how he spent his time planetside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This leaves out a lot of stuff from 'Unfinished Business' ie Lee and the Chief but I just couldn't get it to fit nicely.

_Its not the long flowing dress that you’re in_

_Or the light coming off of your skin_

_Its not your hands searching slow in the dark_

_Or fingernails leaving loves watermarks_

_Its knowing that this can’t go on forever_

_Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone._

**_If we were Vampires: Jason Isbell_ **

It had never been in his nature to deny her anything. Not even when he would have happily traded his ship for a glass of water. Not when she said it was important.

Laura had tried valiantly to slip away but Anders had simply taken her by the hand as if it were the easiest thing in the world and dragged her along too. They needed one more witness after all, who better than the ex-President of the Colonies? Bill had no love for the C-Bucks but in that moment he loved that boy.

The sun was starting to feel hot on his neck when the priest looked at him expectantly. Bill blinked stupidly, dazed by the white light reflecting off of the river.

“I do.” He gravelled through his cotton dry mouth.

The tired corners of his mouth turning up at the giddy delight that lit up his daughters face as she took Anders’ hands in her own. Beaming from ear to ear until she matched Sam’s own lopsided grin, still looking slightly punch drunk, dazed at his good fortune.

Behind his broad shoulders Laura smiled softly, shielding her eyes against the glare. And, when she caught his gaze, winked surreptitiously.

_She had such long lashes she looked doe-eyed in the dark. Deep, heady pools that sparkled green with every glimmer from the distant lights._

“We are gathered here in the sight of Gods and men-“

_Eyelashes fluttered like wings against his jaw. Featherlight as she pushed aside his jacket to press her mouth to his neck._

“To join this man and this woman-“

_The smooth of her skin flushed hot under his hands. The taste of her tongue all cinder and smoke._

“In this most sacred union.” He hair gleamed like burnished copper in the sun, tangled like a live wire, just as likely to spark.

_Knotted loosely in his hands while slender fingers made short work of brass buttons and long journeys of ragged scars._

“Kara Thrace, do you take-“

_Watching her body rise beneath him. Arching into his touch as rough fingers brushed the soft underside of her breast. Skimming the gentle swell of her belly._

“With every fiber of my being.”

_Grazing teeth along her delicate collarbone, sucking gently at the pulse until the light scrape of her fingernails bit deep._

“Samuel Anders, do you -

_A breathy moan as fingertips ghosted against the tender flesh behind her knee._

“I’m so glad I didn’t die before I met you.”

_Breath that stuttered and gasped as he counted the spaces between her ribs. Tracing the line of her hip with a gentle brush of his lips. The throaty cry that tore from the back of her throat._

“May Hera bless your union. May Zeus-“

_The rising, keening moan against his shoulder, her hips canting up to his in mounting desperation, lost deep in the warmth of her._

“So say we all.”

_Her thighs locked tight around his waist._

“Bill?” Laura urged quietly.

_He’d never heard his name cried so sweetly._

“Hmm?... So say we all.” He agreed, barely beat behind.

They were quick in leaving, Bill wondering vaguely how potable the water was as he hugged Kara and clapped a solid hand on Sam’s shoulder.

_His forehead against her heaving sternum. She wrapped her legs behind his knees, her fingers moving to his hair. Holding him in place._

Watching the two staggered away hand in hand he was seized with a powerful desire to do the same with the woman half a step ahead of him.

_The steady thrum of her heart._

Transfixed by the gentle sway of her hips as they meandered along. He never wanted to make her hurry again.

_“I’ve missed you.”_

He tried to breach the space between them, only wanting to take her arm, press his hand to the small of her back. The tips of his fingers barely grazed the back of her wrist before a passer-by pushed past them, his hand falling uselessly to his side.

_"I know.”_

The sight of a docked Raptor waiting patiently to return him back to the quiet embrace of space, Saul slouched messily on the wing, had never looked less tempting.

"Stay safe, Laura."

_Eyes closed, she hummed softly. That warm, delicious sound that came deep from within her chest._

"You too, Bill."

A less stubborn man, a smarter man, would have asked. A braver man would have kissed her.

_He shifted slightly. Pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead if only for the hope to hear it again._

But a man known for his silence could only walk away.

_It was the closest thing to the voice of God as he’d ever heard._

“Bill?” she called out after a moment, and he had to remember to breathe.

She seemed to contemplate the horizon as she wrestled with whatever it was that she wanted to say. Before straightening up and shaking her hair back over her shoulders.

_Lithe arms circled his neck to pull him back down to her._

“… Don’t be a stranger.”

She did not touch him, but she smiled, and for now that was enough.

_"I have to go... in the morning."_

He watched her go, a beacon of light against the grey, until he could no longer make her out from the crush of people joining the marketplace.

_"But you're here now."_

With a grumble he'd been holding all morning, Bill thrust the last of his bread into Saul's chest, jolting him awake.

"Oof... where've you been?" 

_Drawn close against the night air until the tip of his nose could nestle in the warm hollow of her throat and he could finally breathe deep that scent that put him in holy remembrance of home._

"None of your business."


	25. Cover Me Up

_Days when we raged, we flew off the page_

_Such damage was done_

_But I made it through, ‘cause somebody knew_

_I was meant for someone._

**_Cover Me Up: Jason Isbell_ **

He did not visit the surface often. In theory it was not terribly hard to resist, after all he had spent the majority of his married life avoiding solid ground. But it felt different now.

Leaving space had never felt dangerous before, as if he might never return, as if he did not want to.

The first time he had come back had been… awkward. Strangely reminiscent of treading through a minefield as he was forced to quickly discovered exactly that which he was, and was not, allowed to remember.

_“I didn’t know you had sisters.”_ He had brought up casually, eager to continue piecing together the person Laura was, but her reaction had left him feeling anything but casual.

All senses alert. Frozen like a startled animal. Fixing him with a stare that put him in question of every memory he had of her.

_“Two.”_ she had finally allowed.

_“What happened to them?”_ he had asked, while the functioning part of his brain had tried to clap its hands over his mouth and shut him the hell up.

The space between them seemed to harden as walls, so tangible they may as well have been real, flew up again.

_“Died with the rest.”_ She was lying. They both knew it but, for once, Bill did the smart thing and did not challenge it.

When he had woken the next morning, grumbling and stiff from his place on the floor, she seemed happy enough to forget he had ever asked. And in the afternoon, when she walked with him back to the dockyards, she had slipped her hand shyly into his. He had wished he could have given her something, anything really, but he didn’t have anything other than the dog tags around his neck and a pocket full of lint. 

_“Do you have a favourite book?”_ he had asked as they reached the gates.

_“Pardon?”_

_“A favourite book?... I might have it.”_

_“Oh… I, uh…”_ she had dropped his hand as she considered it and, for an instant, he worried he had overstepped again. But a small trill of giggling laughter rang sweetly in his ears.

_“What? What is it?”_ A lopsided grin setting his mustache askew.

_“It’s silly… I haven’t actually read it since high school.”_ And, for the first time since he had landed, she gave him her eyes. Those lovely, piercing eyes of jaded green.

_“What is it?”_ he chuckled softly, imagining some sappy teen novel he’d never heard of and definitely did not own.

_“Einstein on the Beach,”_ she had murmured, _“by Philip Glass.”_

_“I’ve never heard of it.”_

_“I’m not surprised,”_ she had laughed, _“I read it once for an essay on absurdism and never touched it again… but I remember it… remember how I felt when I read it… does that make it my favourite?”_

She did not ask when he was coming back but smiled warmly when he took up her hand again and brushed his lips across her knuckles as a promise to return. And she had been waiting for him in the dockyard when he finally did.

Today he wasn’t so lucky.

It was colder than he had expected, his uniform barely blocking the chill when he stepped off the Raptor. The warm night of Founder’s Day barely a memory.

Maybe he could trade something for a coat, a sweater even. He twirled his wedding band absently. Not that he had much to trade.

He knew about the school, knew it was close to the marketplace. But the market was just a sea of tents; greyish green in the greyish grey of this godsdamned planet.

“Frak…”

“Lost, sir?” an all too familiar voice swaggered from over his shoulder.

He grunted softly as the blonde woman hugged him roughly.

“What do you hear, Starbuck?” he asked with a small grin.

“Nothing but the rain, sir.” She smirked back, tucking her long hair behind her ear, “Lookin’ for something, Admiral?”

“Ah… the school?” he confessed in a tone he hoped was cavalier enough to escape scrutiny.

“What? Roslin’s school?” she asked with a cheeky quirk of her brow, “You’re not far off. Just head on down past the pyramid court,” she pointed, “turn left, and listen for the unholy racket. It’s the biggest tent in the row. You can’t miss it… Here long, sir?” she asked, failing to thwart the mischievous grin slowly stretching across her face.

“A few days.”

“Well, if you’re, ah, not too busy you should come over for dinner sometime. It’s only the next lot down. Bring Madame Prez,” she added with a smile that showed all her teeth, “she’s welcome too, of course.”

“Kara!” and Starbuck looked back over her shoulder for the man who had shouted her name.

“Its good to see you, Starbuck.”

“You too, sir.” And, probably more out of habit than respect, snapped a quick salute before she was swallowed up into the burgeoning thoroughfare.

Bill edged his way carefully along the mud slicked path, mindful to keep his head down, but against the crush of bodies no one paid him much attention. 30,000 people seemed a much larger number when they all had to share one primitive space.

He’d passed the Pyramid courts and turned left just as he’d been instructed when the unholy racket found him. A mass of children scattering in all directions with loud, garbled shouts and laughter from the largest tent in the row.

It would be silly to be nervous, he reminded himself as he pushed aside the heavy canvas to step inside. The desks were set in haphazard little rows with mismatched chairs, all facing the front towards a large board, and the teacher; humming absently to herself as she worked.

“What did you forget?” she admonished with false severity as she reached up on tip toes to wipe down the last of the slate board.

“How much I miss solid ground.”

That did the trick.

Her arm froze in mid air, losing an inch of her height as she lowered herself back down to the ground. He’d never forget that smile, he decided as she turned to face him. But he’d never forgo an opportunity to steal one from her either. Pulled up in one corner. Almost a smirk, and always for him.

“I didn’t know you were coming.” Her voice low, almost sultry, as she perched herself carefully on the corner of her desk. There was no question. No reprimand. Just a statement of fact. So, he followed with his own.

“School’s out early.”

“Storm warning… best to get them back home safely.” And she slid easily off the sturdy table, tying up a wad of coloured papers with a piece of loose twine before tucking a large, yellow flower under the binding for safekeeping.

“Would you care to walk me home?” she asked with a impish glimmer in her eye, winding a long knitted scarf around her neck, as if it were not already understood where he would be staying.

Laura hung tight to his arm against the wind as they walked further and further from the hub of the encampment. Only letting go when they reached the bend in the road that marked their arrival at her lot and stamping off into the long grass to retrieve a small cache of firewood. Bill shivered violently as the gusty wind dragged purple clouds across the already grey sky, bringing with them the first heavy smattering of fat raindrops. He definitely needed to see about a coat.

Laura shook herself a little as she stepped back up onto the road, tipping half of her payload over to Bill so she could untie her front door.

“How long are you here?” she asked with a slight chatter, zipping the closures firmly behind them and taking the rest of the firewood from him.

“Two days.”

She paused in the middle of the tent, turning at the waist to look back at him.

“Does that include today?”

“No…” he replied cautiously as the wind rose to beat against the sides of Laura’s home.

“Well then…” she piled the wood carefully on the stack by the stove and unwound her scarf, “you’d best leave you boots by the bed then, Admiral. Because we are not leaving this room.”


	26. Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've got people... wanna get off those ships and move down here."  
> Maybe one day he could be one of them

_What can I give that is all for you?_

_My heart’s no good ‘cause its split in two._

_What can I give that is all for you?_

_These arms are all I have._

**_Arms : The Paper Kites_ **

Winter had set in as if it never meant to leave.

He wished he’d worn his flight suit as his feet traced a familiar path, but a flight suit was far too conspicuous. Especially now that Saul was asking far more pointed questions every time he left on shore-leave.

“Something down there for you, Bill? Someone?”

An uninterested grunt was all he ever received in return though Saul always left with a self-satisfied chuckle.

There was nothing wrong with it, he reminded himself. He might still be the Admiral but she wasn’t anyone. Not anymore. Not to them anyway.

She was bundled on the floor by the small kettle stove when he finally slipped away from the biting wind. A blanket drawn up to her chin, muffling her hair. Something warmed in his chest when she smiled over the rough spun fabric.

“I didn’t think you’d make it down in this weather.” She smirked, her teeth chattering.

“It’d take more than that to keep me away.” And she flushed at the easiness of that truth from him, “I brought you something.” He continued, reaching into the duffel still slung over his shoulder.

“More blankets, I hope.” And she got unsteadily to her feet, the blankets drawn tight around her shoulders, curious as to the mystery Bill was fumbling for.

“No… probably would have been more useful.” He muttered ruefully and extracted a battered, dog-eared book, “took me a while to find it.” And held it out for her inspection.

Laura let out a surprised ‘hmph’, halfway to a laugh, and leant against him, still encased in her cocoon, staring down at the cover, ripped and haphazardly taped back together again: Einstein on the Beach.

“Room for me in there?” he asked with an echo of the old Viper bravado.

“Will you read it to me?” she asked coyly, the tip of her nose adorably pink, returning to the soft nest by the stove and patted the ground beside her. Opening her protective wrap to admit him into the folds.

The warmth of her body was delicious, snuggled deep against his chest and drawing the rough edge of the fabric up her face until only her eyes, gazing up at him expectantly, could be seen.

Bill wrapped an arm around her, securing himself as much to her as she against him. It was not a very long book, he thought as he fumbled open the mangled cover, more a series of vignettes.

He hadn’t read aloud since his boys were very small, the hoarse timbre uniquely proficient at entrancing small children into sleep, it did not seem to have a dissimilar effect on Laura.

“The day, with its cares and complexities, is ended and the night is now upon us. The night should be a time of peace and tranquility, a time to relax and be calm. We have need of a soothing story to banish the disturbing thoughts of the day, to set at rest our troubled minds, and put at ease our ruffled spirits,”

The warmth of an additional body had calmed the cold tension she’d held in her muscles but, far from sleep, her eyes were almost owlish as they gazed into his face,

“And what sort of story shall we hear? Oh, it will be a familiar story, a story that is very, very old, and yet it is so new. It is the old, old story of love,”

He should have felt self-conscious under her gentle scrutiny but could not muster the sensation. Soft as she was under his hand, calm as the slow expansion of her chest against his with every breath.

He thought she was asleep, when the only light to read by was the waving orange light of the stove fire, unstirring when he jostled her for the final page,

“Two lovers sat on a park bench with their bodies touching each other, holding hands in the moonlight,” he murmured into her hair, squeezing her slightly, “there was silence between them. So profound was their love for each other they needed no words to express it. And so, they sat in silence, on a park bench, with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Finally, she spoke-”

“ _Do you love me John?_ She asked” Laura mumbled against his chest, eyes still closed. Bill smiled at her sleepy recitation and continued without pause.

“ _You know I love you, darling._ He replied. _I love you more than tongue can tell. You are the light of my life. My sun, moon, and stars. You are my everything_.”

“Without you I have no reason for being.” They recited together, a lazy smile teasing her mouth.

“Again, there was silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench, their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Once more she spoke,” and Bill nudged her gently, challenging the extent of her recall.

“How much do you love me, John?” she recounted, her eyes fluttering open.

“He answered. _How much do I love you? Count the stars in the sky. Measure the waters of the oceans with a teaspoon. Number the grains of sand on the seashore. Impossible, you say. Yes. And it is just as impossible for me to say how much I love you. My love for you is higher than the heavens, deeper than Hades, and broader than the earth. It has no limits, no bounds. Everything must have an ending except my love for you._ There was more of silence as the two lovers sat on a park bench with their bodies touching, holding hands in the moonlight. Once more her voice was heard,” he waited almost expectantly for her.

“ _Kiss me, John._ She implored.” Laura breathed.

“And leaning over, he pressed his lips warmly to hers in fervent osculation.”

Her eyes were dark, pupils wide in the half light. For a moment he thought she expected him to kiss her but she dropped her gaze back to the beaten old book held loosely in his hand.

“Thank you.” She murmured sleepily, snuggling deeper against his shoulder, “For this.”

Bill dropped the book carefully to the side, mindful of the fragile binding, and tucked her head safely under his chin.

“You’re welcome.” He whispered into her hair, pressing a tender kiss to the crown of her head. The sweet scent of summer berries had long since faded from the auburn tresses but the warm of her skin, cold lake water, and whatever it was that passed from soap down here, was still the sweetest smell he could remember.

_Is this really it?_ She’d asked him once, _Is this really how we’re going to spend the rest of our days?_

She never asked him if he would stay. How much longer these short, random collections of domesticity would be enough. She was always gracious when he left. Delighted, in her own muted way, when he came back. She did not off any grand declarations, nor did she expect any in return. There was no insistence, no urgency. Only patience. Only...

He doubted that she would ever say it. But here, nestled close in the dark, her arms tight across his chest… he could feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Einstein on the Beach is, in fact, not a book but a song by Philip Glass. Any of you who have read more of my stuff will probably recognise it from Deeper than Hades :)


	27. Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saul sets up a protection detail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last few chapter have been indulgent, fluffy little things... now, on to the angst.

_40,000 people_ , she thought, pulling her scarf further forward to better muffle her hair, _not even that._

_We’re not a civilization anymore,_ carefully skirting the sidelong glances that had started tracking her movements with suspicious curiosity, _we’re a gang._

Laura edged her way further and further from the main encampment, watching the shadows stretch and lengthen until she had nothing to light her way save for the memory of her feet and the paltry glow of the nebula. Trying not to grit her teeth as she picked her way through the dark.

_Maybe it was time to start sleeping in the school…_

The quiet pressed heavy against her ears.

Her shoulders held tight. Every shiver of the wind sending pinpricks to her fingers.

The sanctity of her solitude now become dangerous.

“Madame President.” A low voice growled so close to her ear that she almost skittered out of her skin. Only two people still called her that… and one was still missing.

“You need to stop calling me that, Colonel.” She hissed under her breath, her heart racing, “Unless you want to see me strung up in front of the detention block.”

The moment Cylon boots had hit the ground there had been an unspoken and immediate reckoning amongst what remained of Galactica’s personnel. Suddenly, it were as if anyone who had ever served together had never met.

After all, it was difficult to be arrested for suspicion of collusion if no one actually saw you conspire.

The Cylons were not stupid, of course. People still disappeared with distressing regularity; snatched from their beds in the middle of the night, or simply vanishing around an empty corner. But in the interest of at least feigned legitimacy the new regime had, so far, refrained from summarily arresting all of Galactica’s officers.

It did little to deter Saul from sneaking up behind her every night to see her safely to the end of her row.

“What else am I meant to call you?” he grumbled into his beard.

“You could try ‘Laura’.” 

He just made a sound that was halfway to a disapproving grunt and kept a slow but purposeful pace by her shoulder.

Their footfalls ground dulling in the gravel of the path as they neared the familiar bend in the road. She knew he wanted to say something. It was his proximity that gave him away.

“I have something for you,” he started, “some photos you might find interesting…”

Laura had barely raised her hands to pull her scarf back down around her shoulders when a shiver, colder than the wind, raised hairs on the back of her neck.

Laura stopped dead in her tracks; straining her eyes against the inky black, drawn to the end of the road. To a spot that was darker than the rest.

The shadow of a man looming in the dim.

Saul stepped a little way ahead of her; a hand fisted in his pocket.

“Don’t.” she breathed, just loud enough for him to hear.

She had noticed the model watching her before, they watched all of them… just never this close. His blonde hair glowing silver where it caught the faint light.

The faint echo of a memory tickled her nose with remembered bitterness.

She swallowed down the sudden dry of her mouth, ignoring the base instinct that prickled warningly at the base of her skull, and tried to take a step forward.

Her tent was mere feet away. Some childish logic assuring that if she could just reach it, just get inside, that the canvas walls could keep the demons at bay… but Saul shifted, a movement so subtle it might have been accidental, to block her path.

“There is nothing you can do.” she murmured and touched the Colonel lightly on the arm as she moved past him, imploring him to let her. Her heartbeat pounding in her ears, breath frozen in her chest as she stepped out into the open.

The Leoben made no move to stop her.

Teeth flashing white in a satisfied smirk.

Against every instinct that warned her otherwise, she turned her gaze away from him, looking toward the sky. Searching the heavens, praying, in some desperate hope that she might spy a familiar blip to blot out the stars.

“Laura.”

Saul’s clipped voice carried in the quiet of the night; an order, calling her attention.

Hard, brown eyes met ethereal green for a moment and something of an understanding passing in the space between them…

The day that Saul's grudging escort had become routine Laura had wondered how much longer it would be before he, too, would disappear without a trace.

It was a tall, dark-haired man took his place, “Madame President,” the first and only words he ever spoke to her. Even as he followed her carefully from what she was sure was meant to be a casual distance.

It made no difference in the end.

When the first bombs blew they came for all of them.


	28. Detention

The screaming would not be so bad if she could just sleep. Sharp and piercing like the lights overhead.

The moans were worse.

Caged like animals; the sounds were low and feral.

Wounded.

She started violently at the shout that echoed through her cell, cracking her head hard against its concrete confines with a dull 'smack'.

“Frak!” she hissed, pressed the heel of her palm against the tender spot to smother the flaring pain.

Laura shielded her watering eyes from the glare overhead, praying that if she could not shut out the noise she could at least shut out the light.

If they were going to hurt her, she wished they would hurry up.

She brought her knees up to her chest, trying to ignore the pounding of her head, wrapped her arms tightly around her shins and pressed her face into her knees until stars burst behind her eyes.

She never thought she’d miss the stars. Constant from her window on the Colonial One; Galactica gliding serenely alongside.

She pressed into her knees harder, trying to recall the view from the sandbags in front of her tent.

But the moaning had started again.

“Motherrrrrr….” It was hoarse and broken, like a child crying out in fever.

“Motherr…” desperate and cracked.

She pressed her hands over her ears; rocking.

“MOTHER!”

Laura let one heaving sob escape quietly into her knees.

“Bill…” she whimpered.


	29. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All nightmares start as dreams.

Her green eyes were steely. Her jaw set.

It was an expression he’s seen before; one he knew all too well. An expression that said he was about to have a very long day.

But something was not right with the woman in front of him. She wasn’t wearing her blazer, her blouse. Her hair was long and loose and fell over the rough wool of her sweater. The one she had traded her earrings for.

The desk her fingers were splayed across, almost to steady herself, was not the sleek, polished desk aboard the Colonial One. It was rough hewn and covered with coloured papers. A yellow flower peeking out from between the pages.

He had barely opened her mouth to speak when her head snapped back. Her hair flying with the force of it.

Collapsed. Like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Eyes staring wide.

The neat hole in the center of her forehead colouring the pages scarlet.

Bill awoke with a strangled yell, tearing the sheet he was tangled in.

Panting, he sat up and leant against the wall of his bunk, pushing the cold sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand.

_She’s not dead_ , he told himself, swinging out of his rack and pouring a glass of water, the jug clinked against the glass.

_She’s not dead._ Spilling more water down his tanks than he managed to swallow.

_She’s not dead_. But behind closed eyelids her head snapped back again, and he opened them with a jolt.

_She’s not dead._ Knowing full well that Laura would die before she surrendered.


	30. Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

_Black clouds are behind me, I now can see ahead  
Often I wonder why I try hoping for an end  
Sorrow weighs my shoulders down  
And trouble haunts my mind  
But I know the present will not last  
And tomorrow will be kinder_

_**-The Secret Sisters** _

Laura was starting to regret offering to give Maya a break and take Isis for the afternoon.

Babies had never really been her thing. Toddlers even less so. Their movements were too erratic, their moods just as mercurial. As children went, Hera seemed to have a fairly moderate temper but she didn’t exactly have a large reference pool to draw from.

She had just started walking aimlessly, pointing out the things she recognized, hypothesizing out loud at that which was alien to no one’s real benefit. Hera repeated some words and babbled nonsense at others. Giggled at the snowy rabbits in the thickets and grumbled when she was tired of being carried. Squirming angrily as Laura’s stories of an old Battlestar, utterly devoid of silly voices, failed to placate her.

“You know…” Laura grunted, shuffling her weight to the opposite arm, “when I was a little girl…the first time we fought the Cylons… and bad things would happen, my mother always told me to look for the helpers... There are always helpers…”

Hera had finally managed to wiggle her arms free of the tight swaddling Maya had wrapped her in, thumping her fists against the thick blankets and giggling happily as she yanked her knitted hat from her head and threw it to the sand.

“I don’t know about you,” Laura groaned as she stooped to snag the little pink hat between her fingers, suddenly feeling her age with an extra 20 pounds on her hip, “but your mother will kill me if you come back with a cold.” Managing to pull it snuggly over the little girl’s ears without too much of a fight.

“La-la.” Hera cooed, too fascinated with the fistfuls of hair she’d managed to secure to be too bothered by the return of her hat.

“Two is too much,” Laura winced, managing to disentangle her hair from one chubby little hand, “You can have one.” Hera only giggled again.

“La-la.” And just about headbutted her as she leant forward to press her forehead against Laura’s cheek.

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you? Laura smiled, cuddling the little girl tightly and tucking her head securely under her chin. “This is the only life you know…”

“La-la… down.”

“We’ll make it better for you… I promise.”

“La-la down!” Hera insisted, throwing all her weight forward until Laura was forced to set her down on the sand. Folding the blankets carefully across her knee and sitting down on a sizable stone as Hera toddled away.

She would be dirty and gritty by the time they made it back but the lake was frozen solid, it didn’t pose much of a threat.

It looked different now, but her feet could have found it in the dark.

The sedge grass was all but gone, taking with it the tiny, purple flowers that had once brightened her schoolhouse and the sand that had once been so warm beneath her feet looked closer to ice now.

But, of all of New Caprica, she couldn’t think of a better place to build a cabin. The bedroom set to have an easterly view of the sunrise over the mountains, the yellow light glancing off the lake to the west as it sank low behind the horizon until it was little more than a sliver of bronzed gold. Watching from the window, warmed by the glow of a roaring fire and the heat of the body beside her.

She glanced up out of habit, hoping, maybe, to spy an unfamiliar blot against the grey sky. But today was no different to any other day, and her memories offered no relief.

“He-… Isis, honey, it’s time to go.”

“Nooooo!”

She was too old to run, at least that’s what she told herself as she chased after little girl. Luckily, she wasn’t very fast.

“Nooooo.” Hera giggled as Laura scooped her up in the blankets just about as gracefully as if she were catching a dog out of a bath.

“Yeeesss.” She smiled, slinging her over her shoulder to wrap her up properly, “It’s a long walk home and you are heavy.” She only fought a little after that, easily distracted by having Laura blow on her hands to warm them up. Setting her head down on her shoulder with a huff when she finally grew tired of it.

It was starting to get properly dark down and they weren’t even halfway back. Maya would start to worry.

Curfew was a joke, and a bad one at that, but the Cylons were deadly serious about it. They wouldn’t take a baby, but they would most probably take any excuse to put her in detention again. 

“Dark.” Hera mumbled against her jumper.

“I know, honey. Just close your eyes. We’ll be home soon.”

She hummed absently, just nonsense syllables to lull the baby to sleep, she was easier to carry when she wasn’t squirming. She grumbled angrily and wrapped small arms around her neck, huffing against her throat.

Laura jostled her slightly to tuck her arms securely under her rump, settling her flat across her chest.

_So long as you are with me… no harm will come._

“Black clouds are behind me, I now can see ahead…” she murmured into Hera’s dark curls.

“Often I wonder why I try… hoping for an end.” It had been a long time since she’d heard the lullaby, longer still since it had been sung to her.

“Sorrow weighs my shoulders down… and trouble haunts my mind… but I know the present will not last and tomorrow will be kinder.”


	31. In The Woods Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't outrun destiny... it catches up with you eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set immediately before Precipice.

She had not been sleeping.

Such a thing was impossible here.

But her eyes had been closed and, for a moment, her mind had been quiet.

When a shriek, louder than the squeal of the bolt, slammed them open again.

For the briefest instant, somewhere between the dark and the light, the shadows of trees flickered where there should have been bars.

She could smell him.

“Laura.”

The musty dank of rotting undergrowth slipped under her hands; slithering up her spine even as her shoulders scraped against the wall with a staggered rasp.

His face was hung with shadows, but they made a poor disguise.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”

Night after night of relentless pursuit had ensured she would never forget the shape of him.

“That’s funny,” and her spine prickled as she pushed up against the concrete, willing her legs to stand, even as screamed to run, “I distinctly remember flushing you out of an airlock.”

He laughed a little at that. And stepped out into the light.

The Leoben looked at her curiously, his head tilted slightly to one side, as if he expected to recognize something in her face… as if he expected her to recognize something in his.

“My brother once told me that he had seen a lion where a woman stood.”

He moved towards her with a predatory languor, the heel of his shoe scuffing softly against the ground like the quiet rustle of dry brush.

“Tell me, how long would you stare into the flames? Did they speak to you, Laura? Did they sing? Scream?”

_He puts insidious ideas in our minds._

“What did you hear when your prayers were done?

_More dangerous than any warhead._

“Did they answer?

_He creates fear._

Quivering fingers reached for her. Stretching out in loving caress, even as she flinched away, to gently tuck away her hair. His touch, featherlight, as he traced the curve of her ear. Black eyes raked across her face with all the hungry fervor of the starving void.

“How the Gods must have wept at your return.”

His breath hot on her face.

“But you are not for them. There is no beauty to your stillness. But in the way that you move…”

Her skin crawling as a trembling hand brushed the side of her face with the barest kiss of his fingertips. Frozen in his sight as his eyes finally snapped to hers to rob the very depths of her soul.

“Your demons stare through shrouds of mist. Not gemstones. Like, marble underwater…. Or sage, in winter.”

There was no light. No salvation. The vast marvel of the universe, reduced, to this thin breath of space that stood between them.

She felt the breath thin in her chest, her skin prickling in warning, even as he lowered his hand. His brow furrowed.

“Our Lady of Sorrows.” He pronounced quietly.

“She filled your head with such desolate misery… that sufferance paved the path of the righteous. That the Gods only responded to sorrow. And let you suffer every loss as a punishment. Because every petulant step away, every selfish hope to carve out a life different than the one she chose for you. Only forced Them to clear your path. And all those people, Laura... You could have saved, if you’d only offered up yourself… She taught you that, didn’t she?” he murmured, so close now that she could watch her eyes brim in the reflection of her own.

“You don’t know _anything_ about-”

“She was wrong.” And black eyes softened to a shade of human brown, “There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for...”

A low and familiar roar in the distance rumbled the foundations of the prison. The droning siren an accustomed nuisance. She watched carefully for his reaction, but his focus remained unbroken.

“You are not a beacon of conflict, Laura. This is not your path.”

“You have robbed us of all others.” She bit back with a snarl but Leoben merely shook his head.

“He will come back for you. You know this. But this place, and all that you found here, will be little more than memory and dust. And when the circle turns ‘round again… we must all of us play our part.”

Laura felt her blood freeze in her veins.

“…I don’t know what you mean.” She breathed, but the barest quaver betrayed her.

His patience, a gentle exhale, fluttered across her forehead.

“The blood of the new generation flows through you, but it is not yours to pass along.” He said softly and the smallest of whimpers shuddered through her nose at the strange tenderness of his words.

Almost as if in apology.

Laura shook her head in weak protestation; her lip caught between her teeth. 

“You don’t know that.”

“I _saw_ it!” he vowed urgently, his eyes burning black with a divine fire.

“I saw it.” He repeated, softer when she shrank away, “In the Opera House… bathed in the light of God,” reaching for her with all the hesitance of holy reverence to dip his fingers into the soft of her hair.

“A perfect lamb.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leoben sure knows how to rattle a cage.  
> Sorry for the long delay. This chapter has been bothering me for the better part of a month.


	32. Home (in the Midst of my Life)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion we were all robbed of.

She blinked rapidly under the blue intensity of his gaze, drinking her in as if he had never seen her before. As if he had thought he never would again.

A dark storm clouded his face; a dangerous introspection she recognized immediately.

The grip of his hands loosened slightly on her shoulders, touch burning through the rough wool of her jumper like a brand, trailing down her upper arms. Squeezing her gently this time.

Less possessive.

Reassuring.

Something of the crushing weight of New Caprica lifted under his hands and she shuddered at the release. She took half a step forward, the void between them melting away until the buttons of his uniform snagged on her jumper.

A pull stronger than gravity.

Gods she hated space.

But space was where Bill was. Where Bill would always be.

Without a word she laid her forehead against his shoulder, reveling in the familiar fabric even as it prickled her skin. The clean, crisp smell of him and military issue soap.

This is familiar.

She slid her arms around the broad expanse of his back.

This is solid.

And she tightened her hold on him even as he held her against him. A shield against all hurts. Bill would relieve her of all burdens if it were within his power. Sometimes she thought he believed it was. Like Atlas, he would shoulder the skies if he could.

This is safe.

Closing her eyes as he turned his face into her hair. 

This is home.


	33. The Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I let you get to close... all of you. I dropped my guard. Gave some of you breaks... Let some of you go, before the fight was really over. I let this crew and this family disband. And we paid the price in lives... That can't happen again."

Was that speech meant for me too?” Laura asked, wringing out the cloth and dabbing at the cut over his eye, “I think it’s stopped.” She murmured, more to herself.

Bill winced under her tender attention.

He took in the woman before him; carefully tending to the wounds he has inflicted upon himself. Her shoes were by the couch, haphazard on the floor, her blazer cast over his desk, shirt untucked from the band of her skirt.

Comfortable.

He is caught by the gap in her blouse, the buttons pulled taught by the rigidity of her posture. Her hair tickling the tops of his shoulders as she works. He reached out to touch her but caught her wrist instead, ceasing her ministrations.

She looks down at him curiously, almost playfully, her glasses balanced at the end of her nose, still waiting for his answer.

He runs a thumb in small circles over the back of her hand, unable to meet the warmth and understanding he knew he would find in the green of her eyes.

She hums. A warm, soothing sound that balms his battered soul.

Drawing away her hand, Laura dipped the cloth back into the basin.

“Well… in that case, Admiral,” and she scrutinized his face more closely, the hint of a sorrowful smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, “It’s nice to have a friend.”

She pushes her glasses further up her nose, the yellow light reflected in the lenses, obscuring her eyes. She pressed the cloth to his temple easing out the blood that had already begun to dry there.

“Friends don’t usually do this.” He observed dryly, watching her bracelet shimmer in front of his eyes.

“Good friends do.” She countered quietly, shaking out a pack of butterfly stitches from the med kit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all been very patient so I'm going to drop multiple chapters over the next few days.


	34. The Ending of Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things don't just fall apart, people break them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue is taken from a deleted scene in "The Eye of Jupiter".

It was not so much the act as the keeping it from him that left him cold. Empty. Until all that was left was to fill the screaming void with boiling, burning rage.

It was an evil thing. An ugly thing, A sinful thing.

And he hated her for it.

She had _stolen_ a _child._ Secreted her away… Hid her from him.

“Alright, Bill… I don’t know what you want me to do here.”

_Stop it._

Stop this great, looming tragedy he could feel swelling in this chasm of space between them. Roaring up beneath their feet. 

He could have asked it of Laura, but it was becoming harder and harder to find the woman he’d known behind the mask of the President.

He had thought that she would peek out from time to time, even if it were just in the coy quirk of her lip… the mindless fidget of her hands. But, when the lilting call of his name lifted his gaze… she never quite looked how he remembered.

She was hidden from him.

All bloody knuckles and broken glass.

She tapped an impatient rhythm against his doorframe.

“Should I leave?”

But the feather soft of her fingertips betrayed her bloodstained teeth.

Each measured beat thrumming remembered heat against his skin, whisper soft as they searched slow in the dark… A vision too removed to mention. 

This gentle person whose trials had forged too hard.


	35. We Circle Through the Night, Consumed by Fire (Pt 1)

It was not fancy.

Fancy had been so long ago she wasn’t sure it was real anymore.

Fancy had been with a different man.

“When are you expecting your shuttle?” and he moved to top off her glass.

It was the most personal question he’d asked her all evening.

“Mmm… no thank you.” And she waved him off, “Actually, I was hoping that I might intrude on your hospitality for the night. Seeing as I’m back again in the morning.”

She was toeing the line, she knew. She had already spent what remained of her personal capital just to maintain civility. This just might stretch it to breaking point.

“You are always welcome aboard Galactica, Madame President.” He stoppered the decanter, his gaze still fixed to the floor. She noted the shift in her address.

She suspected that his invitation had been an apology of sorts, her acceptance equally so, a peace offering in its barest form. But, as mature, responsible adults trusted to protect the remnants of a dying civilisation, they had, for the most part, decided to ignore the gaping chasm between their feet.

If they were going to maintain this tenuous balance… he had to at least look at her.

“Do you mind? Bill… If I stay?” her voice low and rich, almost sultry.

He shifted slightly in his seat. Interlocking his fingers and sighing through his nose.

“Not at all.”

And by some inexplicable reason, the virtue of their buried familiarity, she knew he was truthful,

“But you might…”

And the rumble in his voice quirked an eyebrow as if by instinct.

“All executive quarters have been billeted for the Pegasus Officers or are still being repaired after the Exodus… and I, uh… can’t imagine that you’d like to bunk with the pilots.”

She laughed. Short and sweet. Warmer than mulled wine.

He smiled at his clasped hands.

She sighed happily, small, lingering giggles bubbling in her chest.

The chill finally easing from the room.

“No…” she acquiesced, glowing in the warm cabin light, “Luckily I’m well acquainted with sleeping on a couch.”

Bill shook his head and rose from the table, offering his hand to help her up.

Laura took it easily.

“I’ll take the couch.” He said in a voice that did not broker argument, “I got pretty familiar with it myself once upon a time.”

“No, Bill. I couldn’t-”

“Last time I checked; this is still a war vessel… So, I believe that this matter falls under the purview of the military, Madame President.” And he smiled cheekily, like a man half his age.

She smirked, conceding defeat, "Yes, sir." very aware he still had hold of her hand.

There was hope still, she decided, for this tiny flame cradled between their two palms.

But reality loomed outside the door and it brought violent winds.


	36. We Circle Through the Night, Consumed by Fire (Pt 2)

He liked it when she stayed. Probably more than he would ever admit to.

His quarters had always been comfortable but there was something distinctly homely in her presence.

When she wasn’t caught up in her paperwork, Laura liked to read. She liked the center of his couch, her feet tucked under her, one hand finger combing her hair absently.

He liked that she kicked off her heels by his desk, where they’d stay haphazardly until morning.

He liked the smell of her in his sheets after she was gone.

Bill was still haunted by the vision of her execution, the smell of gunpowder, the awful snap of her head. He liked that it let him alone while she was there and stayed away when he could breathe her in his sleep,

He did not like that she obviously did not share the same comfort and often awoke to a soft whimper in the dark. A gasping sob.

Was she awake?

Should he wake her?

Should he ask her about it in the morning?

She had said that they were good friends… what would a good friend do?

Bill rolled onto his side to face the back of the couch. _Coward._ But she was still separate from him, both the mask and the wearer, at least this way she could move about without fear of him watching her.

_What if it were Saul?_

If it were Saul it wouldn’t be this complicated. Punching a man in tanks awake in his bunk felt distinctly different than reaching out for a woman in silk in his bed. 

The only hint that Laura had awoken at all was the sudden rush of water from the sink and the small, shushing moans it tried to mask.

Bill closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. The only privacy he could provide.


	37. If You Call (I'll Leave on a Light for You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory "Day in the Life" Chapter

The book was surprisingly warm in his hands. If he closed his eyes, maybe he could match the shape of his palm to the place where hers had been. Trace the lingering path of her fingers across the cover. Once upon a time, they might have read it together… waited for the warm season and made an occasion of it. He would have taken a blanket for the simple pleasure of watching Laura stretched out on the sand with her back bare to the sun. Dozing happily in the warmth of his voice in the place she had wanted to make her home.

“Do you ever think about the times much on New Caprica?”

_“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”_

But he ignored her. And, for the first time that day, it was easy.

He catches her surprise, but she covers it well, hiding behind the safety of a politicians answer and the protection of that temperate smile.

“I try to think about the good times… Yes, I do.”

She had acquiesced so graciously to his clumsy severance of their… more personal relationship. Retreated back to an acceptable distance where it was easier to simply pretend that it had never happened. And now he couldn’t even hold up his end of the deal.

“One in particular stands out in my mind… you were wearing a really bright, red dress… Said you wanted to build a cabin.”

Perhaps it was just a trick of his memory that lifted the corner of her mouth into a coy and playful smirk.

“It was Baltar’s groundbreaking ceremony…”

But when he looks again, the glow that brightens her eyes has nothing to do with Galactica’s yellow lights.

“I got a little silly that night.”

And the flash of her teeth teases that she remembers more than she’d ever admitted to, even to him. But the deflection sinks something cold in his chest and it shrivels in his belly.

“Ever think about what might have happened? If the Cylons didn’t come back?”

He doesn’t know what it is he needs to hear it from her. Or why it was so important, today of all days, to know that whatever it was between them on that bleak, little rock had meant something. Why it was more vital now than it ever had been then.

But she parries his romantic reminiscence with political pragmatism.

“Well, I think given Baltar and the terrain, we couldn’t have made a go of it.”

When, with the slightest shift of her weight from one leg to the other, the romantic in her peeks through.

“What about you? Do you think you would have stayed on Galactica? Or would you have settled?”

He had always been enamored with the dark allure of space, the magic of the stars, the possibility of the infinite. It had tempted him from his wife, stolen him from his sons, sworn his devotion to its service.

 _“You would have left it all for her. She wouldn’t have even had to beg.”_ The echo is scornful, jealous, as it reverberates through his head.

And the declaration feels incriminating, somehow… it is just so much easier to pretend he doesn’t know the answer.

“That’s pretty hypothetical isn’t it?”

But Laura has always been braver than him.

“It is.” she agreed, “Until it isn’t.” and she has set her shoulders just so, her mouth pulling to one side as she tightens her jaw.

He hears the question that lives in the space around her, the promise in the scent of her skin, the crackle in the electricity of her hair.

Then she laughs that sweet, little laugh. Suddenly weightless, as if she’s forgotten all her burdens.

“Oh my Gods… did I just say that?”

And he can’t help but smile. He always does.

“It’s worth just seeing you laugh like that… we’ve been at war so long we forget what we’re fighting for… to raise our kids in peace… enjoy one another’s company. Live our life as people again.”

“Like that night on New Caprica? That’s what we are talking about here now, isn’t it?”

There is some kind of magic in her, the same ethereal, unreachable, irresistible pull.

“That, and other times.”

It lived deep in her bones; that same stardust that birthed the instant of creation.

“So, if the cylons hadn’t come back?”

And dear Gods, she is dazzling.

“But they did…” he hears himself say, and can only watch as she fades from him, “We have certain responsibilities.”

Because it is the same lie, the lingering glow, that lights the path of a long dead star.

“Yes, we do, sir. And, uh… I’ll be back in a few days, and if you’d like, we could talk more about that night.”

A quiet phantom to drift alongside in the night.

“Bill?..” But there, in the darkened hatchway of his broken Battlestar, Astraea was made flesh once more, “The answer is yes. I absolutely would have built the cabin.” Flushed bright with the promise of tomorrow.”

And that light was more real to him than anything.


	38. As It Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura and Bill have that 'talk'.

Laura was not a sound sleeper.

He did not know if she ever had been.

Did not know if it was the terrors of New Caprica or some older malfeasance that came to revisit her at night. All he knew was that the nights she stayed in his quarters she would start with a small cry in the dark and gasp into the void before moving past his bunk like a silent wisp and run the water in his sink to mask her quiet sobs.

The night he had been brave enough to open his eyes and watch her through the dark he had glimpsed her clutching her chest and trying to calm her heaving breaths with quiet shushing sounds. He did not want to encroach on her nightmares, even as close as they had become, the wall between them demanded her privacy. But her sobs were so clearly distinguishable beneath the sounds of the running faucet, the rasping gasps as she tried to catch her breath… the low hum of anguish in her throat.

She had not spoken of New Caprica. The occupation. Her detention. Her almost execution. He did not ask about it, couldn’t bring himself to force her to relive something she so obviously wanted to forget.

But the vision that had followed him through the Occupation. Of her head kicked back by the force of a bullet, her red hair flying as she collapsed behind her desk on the Colonial One. Behind the tables of her schoolhouse. Over the cot in her tent… it hadn’t left him. Maybe her visions hadn’t left her either.

Maybe it was time to exorcise their demons.

She was on the floor, her head against the bulkhead, her knees drawn up to her chest quivering with the effort to control her breathing. Clutching at her breast with tears streaming down her face.

“Laura?” he asked softly, unwilling to disturb her privacy.

Shaking, she removed her hand from under her slip to cover her face.

“I’m sorry.” She gasped, hiding her face behind her fingers, “I’m fine, really.”

“No,” and he pulled the blanket from his bunk, “No you’re not.” 

“Please Bill…” she pleaded from behind her fingers, “please just go back to bed.”

“Can’t do that.” And he turned off the faucet and slid down the wall beside her, tucking the blanket over her bare knees.

“Thank you.” She whispered and drew it closer to her chest as if to shield herself from him. Laura wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her silver bracelet glinting in the half light, her breath shuddering as she fought to control herself.

“You know… I think about New Caprica a lot.” He started. Speaking to the opposite wall, “The music… people dancing. The warmth of actual sunshine on my shoulders…”

He twirled his wedding band absently.

“A woman in a red dress, selling me a dream of cabins and streams…” he smiled, “murmuring warm comforts in my ear under the night sky with solid ground under my back.”

He tempted a sidelong glance, hoping to catch the whisper of a smile, but only saw new tears fall from glassy eyes and sobered, his voice dropping lower still; weighed down by his guilt.

“I think about when I jumped away… when I left you all… when I left you to be tormented, and tortured… murdered.”

“This isn’t how I imagined having this conversation.” Laura interjected with a grim, watery laugh; her chin balanced in the palm of her hand.

“How did you imagine it?” Bill asked but Laura just sighed and fixed her gaze on him. Her cheeks still damp but her mouth pulled up at the corners with a familiar, coy mischief. Deepening the lines by her eyes.

A chuckle rumbled deep in his chest and he reached over without reservation and took her hand in his own. She did not pull away, but she did not reciprocate either.

“I still dream about it.” He confessed, “The same dream. Over and over.”

She studied him curiously in the dark.

“Even though I know you’re safe. Even when you’re asleep in the next room…” He tightened his grip on her hand and felt some of the tightness in his chest loosen when she leant against him, albeit gingerly. Her hair tickling his bare shoulders.

“You dream about me?” she teased gently, knocking her knees against his.

“Trust me, I can think of more pleasant images of you to have running around my head.”

Her small giggle ended abruptly in a long hum. And he closed his eyes to the warmth of that gentle sound.

“New Caprica…” she considered grimly, “You know… when Caprica was being blown apart beneath us and the last stragglers of humanity were being rounded up by that girl who shot you in the chest… The whole world was ending, and I couldn’t focus on anything other than the fact that I had cancer and I was going to die…”

“But you didn’t.”

“And yet I still wake up at night… I wake up and try not to scream. Not because I’m trapped in that Gods-damned, stinking prison of Gaius-frakking-Baltar. Not because I was loaded into the back of a truck like a cow for slaughter… I wake up… because every night that lump is back, Bill… and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

He shifted slightly and extricated his arm to wrap securely around her. He had not forgotten but he had grown so accustomed to her healthy vibrance that her cancer had drifted a way back in his mind in his way that it had so obviously not done in hers. She had been so steely, hard even, during those months that he had not really considered how her illness, or sudden resurrection, had truly affected her.

“It’s just a nightmare, Laura.” He murmured into her hair, but she was quaking beneath him again.

“No. Bill… it’s not.” She gasped breathlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like an alternate version of this "talk", I'd like to direct you to "By the Horns" which is by no means less angsty but decidedly pays homage to the time honoured tradition of trying to frak away your problems.


End file.
